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Title: The Age Trajectory of Earnings Inequality: An Evaluation of Three Mechanisms
Resulting in 1 citation.
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Cheng, Siwei |
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The Age Trajectory of Earnings Inequality: An Evaluation of Three Mechanisms Presented: New York NY, American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, August 2013 Cohort(s): NLSY79 Publisher: American Sociological Association Keyword(s): Earnings; Gender Differences; Life Course; Wage Gap; Wages Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher. The age trajectory of earnings inequality within a cohort of population is an important macro-level phenomenon that stems from micro-level life course process of earnings attainment. Unfortunately, the sociological understanding of this inequality-generating process over people’s life course has been hindered by the lack of formal model and systematic empirical tests (DiPrete and Eirich 2006). To rectify this intellectual gap, this paper establishes a formal model that elucidates three important mechanisms that can produce the increase in earnings inequality over age: growth rate heterogeneity, status acceleration and cumulative disturbance. In this model, we will explicate why these three mechanisms should matter for the age trajectory of earnings inequality, and demonstrate their effects through micro-simulation. Further, the formal model enables us to identify the contribution of each of the three mechanisms using micro-level longitudinal data. Using NLSY79, a nationally-representative longitudinal data of a total of 418,638 person-year observations, we find that that all three mechanisms have contributed to the increase in earnings inequality yet to varying degrees. Moreover, their contributions differ for men and women: for men, the three mechanisms explain relatively equal proportions of the increase in earnings inequality from age 25 to 45; yet, for women, the bulk (80%) of increase in earnings inequality between age 25 and 45 is explained by the mechanism of cumulative disturbance. |
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Bibliography Citation
Cheng, Siwei. "The Age Trajectory of Earnings Inequality: An Evaluation of Three Mechanisms." Presented: New York NY, American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, August 2013. |