@EdWorkingPaper{ai21-431,
title = "Skills, Degrees and Labor Market Inequality",
author = "Peter Q. Blair, Papia Debroy, Justin Heck",
institution = "Annenberg Institute at Brown University",
number = "431",
year = "2021",
month = "June",
URL = "http://www.edworkingpapers.com/ai21-431",
abstract = {Over the past four decades, income inequality grew significantly between workers with bachelorÕs degrees and those with high school diplomas (often called ÒunskilledÓ). Rather than being unskilled, we argue that these workers are STARs because they are skilled through alternative routesÑnamely their work experience. Using the skill requirements of a workerÕs current job as a proxy of their actual skill, we find that though both groups of workers make transitions to occupations requiring similar skills to their previous occupations, workers with bachelorÕs degrees have dramatically better access to higher wage occupations where the skill requirements exceed the workersÕ observed skill. This measured opportunity gap offers a fresh explanation of income inequality by degree status and reestablishes the important role of on-the-job-training in human capital formation.},
}