High School Completion & Men's Incomes: An Apparent Anomaly

Abstract

This article attempts to explain why, between 1961 and 1972, as the proportion of men aged 25-34 who completed high school increased, the pecuniary effects of high school graduation rose. The authors are unable to explain the increase in terms of widening human capital differences between dropouts and graduates, queuing processes, or shifts in occupational composition and are led to conclude that as high school graduation becomes increasingly common, the social definition of the high school dropout as unqualified for the labor market intensifies, and the economic disadvantages suffered by dropouts increase beyond those predicted by simple models of the education-income relationship.