This paper examines the effect of oral health on labor market outcomes by exploiting variation in fluoridated water exposure during childhood. The politics surrounding the adoption of water fluoridation by local governments suggests exposure to fluoride is exogenous to other factors affecting earnings. Exposure to fluoridated water increases…

In estimating earnings equations for seven occupations, when fringe benefits are excluded, women receive significantly lower wages in all but the most female-dominated occupation. Including fringe benefits makes gender significant in only one occupational category. Crowding of one gender into an occupation appears the primary determinant of the…

This report focuses on the education and work experiences of rural youth during the emerging adult years (age 20 to 24), as they make the transition from adolescence to adulthood. It documents how rural emerging adults combine work and school and experience idleness, closely examines their educational attainment, and compares their experiences…

The strongest recent statement that inequality in America is the natural result of a free market came in "The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life" by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray. These authors argued that intelligence determines how well people do in life, and the rich are rich largely because they are…

The importance of intelligence quotient (IQ) to income is analyzed using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, a study that began in 1979 with 12,686 subjects. Data for this study go through the 1994 interview wave, so that the most recent income data is for 1993. Statistical techniques are used to separate the influence of IQ from…

Through the 1960s, African-Americans earned much less than whites--even when their cognitive abilities (as measured by test scores) were similar. By the end of the century, however, many believed that employment discrimination had attenuated to such a degree that the gap in labor-market outcomes could be explained almost entirely by differences in…

To examine the impact of rising wage inequality on lifetime wage growth, a study compared the wage mobility experienced by two cohorts of young white men from the National Longitudinal Surveys. The original cohort entered the labor market in the mid-1960s at the end of the economic boom and was followed through the end of the 1970s. The recent…