Premium
Wages and the Composition of Experience
Author(s) -
Goldsmith Arthur H.,
Veum Jonathan R.
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
southern economic journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.762
H-Index - 58
eISSN - 2325-8012
pISSN - 0038-4038
DOI - 10.1002/j.2325-8012.2002.tb00501.x
Subject(s) - national longitudinal surveys , work experience , wage , value (mathematics) , wage growth , labour economics , economics , demographic economics , composition (language) , longitudinal data , work (physics) , sociology , demography , engineering , mechanical engineering , linguistics , philosophy , machine learning , computer science
This paper provides evidence on the relation between alternative forms of experience and wages using data drawn from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Prior labor market experience is segmented into mutually exclusive categories based on industry and occupation to examine how subsequent employers value skills acquired on previous jobs. We find that most forms of experience, including tenure at the current job, provide a comparable return. However, the wage return to prior experience in a different occupation and industry is significantly lower. Such “career changes” constitute over half of all prior work experience among workers in their mid‐30s.