CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 162Labor market dynamics and wage inequalityIntergenerational and Educational Inequality StudiesHigher Education and Employability

Field of Study in College and Lifetime Earnings in the United States

Open access
Kim, ChangHwan, Tamborini, Christopher R., Sakamoto, Arthur·2015·Sociology of Education
DOI 10.1177/0038040715602132PMC PMC5198720
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

Our understanding about the relationship between education and lifetime earnings often neglects differences by field of study. Utilizing data that match respondents in the Survey of Income and Program Participation to their longitudinal earnings records based on administrative tax information, we investigate the trajectories of annual earnings following the same individuals over 20 years and then estimate the long-term effects of field of study on earnings for U.S. men and women. Our results provide new evidence revealing large lifetime earnings gaps across fields of study. We show important differences in individuals’ earnings trajectories across different stages of the work life by field of study. In addition, the gaps in 40-year (i.e., ages 20 to 59) median lifetime earnings among college graduates by field of study are larger, in many instances, than the median gap between high school graduates and college graduates overall. We also find significant variation among graduate degree holders. Our results uncover important similarities and differences between men and women with regard to the long-term earnings differentials associated with field of study. In general, these findings underscore field of study as a critical dimension of horizontal stratification in educational attainment.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1177/0038040715602132

Cites

3 of 3 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Different fields of study are associated with considerably different payoffs, even after accounting for sorting and variance in the quality of institutions or peer groups.

    “These differences are in turn an important source of economic inequality and immobility: different fields of study are associated with considerably different payoffs (Kim, Tamborini, and Sakamoto 2015), even after accounting for sorting and variance in the quality of institutions or peer groups (Dale andKrueger 2014, Kirkeboen, Leuven, andMogstad 2016).”

    From Educational Inequality* (2022) · cites this paper as Kim, Tamborini, and Sakamoto 2015

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Research works printed but not linked: 54

  1. Arcidiacono Peter Joseph Hotz V Kang Songman 2012 Modeling college major choices using elicited measures of expectations and counterfactuals Journal of Econometrics 166 3 16
  2. Autor David H 2014 Skills, Education, and the Rise of Earnings Inequality among the “Other 99 Percent Science 344 843 51 24855259
  3. Becker Gary S 1981 A Treatise on the Family Cambridge, MA Harvard University Press
  4. Beffy Magali Fougere Denis Maurel Arnaud 2012 Choosing the field of study in postsecondary education: Do expected earnings matter? Review of Economics and Statistics 94 334 347
  5. Berger Mark C 1988 Predicted Future Earnings and Choice of College Major Industrial and Labor Relations Review 41 418 29
  6. Björklund A 1993 A comparison between actual distributions of annual and lifetime income: Sweden 1951–89 Review of Income and Wealth 39 377 386
  7. Blau Peter M Duncan Otis D 1967 The American Occupational Structure New York John Wiley & Sons
  8. Bowlus Audra J Robin Jean-Marc 2004 Twenty Years of Rising Inequality in U.S. Lifetime Labor Income Values Review of Economic Studies 71 709 42
  9. Brand Jennie E Xie Yu 2010 Who Benefits Most from College? Evidence for Negative Selection in Heterogeneous Economic Returns to Higher Education American Sociological Review 75 273 302 20454549 PMC2865163
  10. Buchmann Claudia DiPrete Thomas A 2006 The Growing Female Advantage in College Completion: The Role of Family Background and Academic Achievement American Sociological Review 71 515 541
  11. Charles Maria Bradley Karen 2002 Equal but Separate? A Cross-National Study of Sex Segregation in Higher Education American Sociological Review 67 573 99
  12. Chetty Raj Hendren Nathaniel Kline Patrick Saez Emmanuel Turner Nicholas 2014 Where is the Land of Opportunity? The Geography of Intergenerational Mobility in the United States Quarterly Journal of Economics 129 1553 1623
  13. Corak Miles 2013 Income Inequality, Equality of Opportunity, and Intergenerational Mobility Journal of Economic Perspective 27 79 102
  14. Cooke Thomas J 2003 Family Migration and the Relative Earnings of Husbands and Wives Annals of the Association of American Geographers 93 341 352
  15. Cristia Julian P 2009 Rising mortality and life expectancy differentials by lifetime earnings in the United States Journal of Health Economics 28 984 995 19616863
  16. Daymont Thomas N Andrisani Paul J 1984 Job Preference, College Major, and the Gender Gap in Earnings The Journal of Human Resources 19 408 28
  17. Elder Glen H Jr Pavalko Eliza K 1993 Work Careers in Men’s Later Years: Transitions, Trajectories, and Historical Change Journal of Gerontology 48 S180 191 8315242
  18. Engen Eric M Gale William G Uccello Cori E 2005 Lifetime earnings, Social Security benefits, and the adequacy of retirement wealth accumulation Social Security Bulletin 66 38 57 16295316
  19. Espenshade Thomas J Radford Alexandria Walton 2009 No Longer Separate, Not Yet Equal: Race and Class in Elite College Admission and Campus Life Princeton, NJ Princeton University Press
  20. Featherman David L Hauser Robert M 1978 Opportunity and Change New York Academic Press
  21. Gerber Theodore P Cheung Sin Yi 2008 Horizontal Stratification in Postsecondary Education: Forms, Explanations, and Implications Annual Review of Sociology 34 299 318
  22. Goyette Kimberly A Mullen Ann L 2006 Who Studies the Arts and Sciences? Social Background and the Choice and Consequences of Undergraduate Field of Study The Journal of Higher Education 77 497 538
  23. Haider Steven Solon Gary 2006 Life-Cycle Variation in the Association between Current and Lifetime Earnings American Economic Review 96 1308 1320
  24. Hao Lingxin Naiman Daniel Q 2007 Quantile Regression Thousand Oaks, CA Sage Publications
  25. Hauser Robert M Warren John Robert 1997 Socioeconomic Indexes for Occupation: A Review, Update, and Critique Sociological Methodology 27 177 298
  26. Hendricks Lutz 2007 The intergenerational persistence of lifetime earnings European Economic Review 51 125 144
  27. Huggett Mark Ventura Gustavo Yaron Amir 2011 Sources of Lifetime Inequality American Economic Review 101 2923 54
  28. Iams Howard M Reznik Gayle L Tamborini Christopher R 2010 Earnings Sharing in the U.S. Social Security System: A Microsimulation Analysis of Future Female Retirees The Gerontologist 50 495 508 20439296
  29. Kantrowitz Mark 2007 The Financial Value of a Higher Education NASFAA Journal of Student Financial Aid 37 19 27
  30. Kim ChangHwan Sakamoto Arthur 2008 The Rise of Intra-Occupational Wage Inequality in the United States, 1983 to 2002 American Sociological Review 73 129 157
  31. Ma Yingyi Savas Gokhan 2014 Which Is More Consequential: Fields of Study of Institutional Selectivity? The Review of Higher Education 37 221 47
  32. Mare Robert D 1980 Social Background and School Continuation Decisions Journal of American Statistical Association 75 295 305
  33. Manning Willard G 1998 The Logged Dependent Variable, Heteroscedasticity, and the Retrsnsformation Problme Journal of Health Economics 17 283 95 10180919
  34. McNabb J Timmons D Song J Puckett C 2009 Uses of Administrative Data at the Social Security Administration Social Security Bulletin 69 75 84 19579531
  35. Oreopoulos Philip Petronijevic Uros 2013 Making College Worth It: A Review of the Returns to Higher Education The Future of Children 23 41 65 25522645
  36. Oreopoulos Philip Salvanes Kjell G 2011 Priceless: The Nonpecuniary Benefits of Schooling Journal of Economic Perspectives 25 159 84
  37. Reed Ritchie H Miller Herman P 1970 Some Determinants of the Variation in Earnings for College Men The Journal of Human Resources 5 177 90
  38. Reimer David Noelke Clemens Kucel Aleksander 2008 Labor Market Effects of Field of Study in Comparative Perspective: An Analysis of 22 European Countries International Journal of Comparative Sociology 49 233 56
  39. Ruel Erin Hauser Robert M 2013 Explaining the Gender Wealth Gap Demography 50 1155 1176 23264038 PMC3686840
  40. Rumberger Russell W Thomas Scott L 1993 The Economic Return to College Major, Quality and Performance: A Multilevel Analysis of Recent Graduates Economics of Education Review 12 1 19
  41. Sakamoto Arthur Goyette Kimberly A Kim ChangHwan 2009 Socioeconomic Attainments of Asian Americans Annual Review of Sociology 35 255 276
  42. Sampson Robert J Laub John H 1992 Crime and Deviance in the Life Course Annual Review of Sociology 18 63 84
  43. Sawhill Isabel V 2014 Generation Unbound D.C Brookings Institution Press
  44. Song Chunyan Glick Jennifer E 2004 College Attendance and Choice of College Majors Among Asian-American Students Social Science Quarterly 85 1401 21
  45. Sum Andrew Khatiwada Ishwar 2010 The Nation’s Underemployed in the “Great Recession” of 2007–09 Monthly Labor Review 11 3 15
  46. Tamborini Christopher R Iams Howard M 2011 Are Generation X’ers Different than Late Boomers? Family and Earnings Trends among Recent Cohorts of Women at Young Adulthood Population Research and Policy Review 30 59 79
  47. Tamborini Christopher R Kim ChangHwan Sakamoto Arthur 2015 Education and Lifetime Earnings in the US Demography 52 4 PMC4534330 26100983
  48. Turner Sarah E Bowen William G 1999 Choice of Major: The Changing (Unchanging) Gender Gap Industrial and Labor Relations Review 52 289 313
  49. Waldron Hilary 2013 Mortality Differentials by Lifetime Earnings Decile: Implications for Evaluations of Proposed Social Security Law Changes Social Security Bulletin 73 1 37 23687740
  50. Warren John Robert Hauser Robert M Sheridan Jennifer T 2002 Occupational Stratification across the Life Course: Evidence from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study American Sociological Review 67 432 55
  51. Weber M [1922]1978 Economy and Society Roth G Wittich C Berkeley University of California Press
  52. Weeden Kim A 2002 Why Do Some Occupations Pay More than Others? Social Closure and Earnings Inequality in the United States American Journal of Sociology 108 55 101
  53. Wilkinson Bruce W 1966 Present Value of Lifetime Earnings for Different Occupations The Journal of Political Economy 74 556 72
  54. Zhang Liang 2005 Advance to Graduate Education: The Effect of College Quality and Undergraduate Majors Review of Higher Education 28 313 338

Cited by

Sorted by citations

  • Educational Inequality*

    Blanden, J., Doepke, M., & Stuhler, J. (2022) · National Bureau of Economic Research · doi:10.3386/w29979 · Cited by 47 · see citing works

    “Ramey and Ramey (2010) document, for example, that more educated parents in the United States have increased the time spent on childcare much more than less educated parents, and monetary investments are likewise diverging between families at different places along the income scale (Corak, 2013; Kornrich and Furstenbe…”
    BackgroundInfluential

Authors
Kim, C., Tamborini, C. R., & Sakamoto, A.
Affiliations
  • University of Kansas (US)
  • United States Social Security Administration (US)
  • Texas A&M University (US)
Corresponding author
Kim, ChangHwan
ORCID
Venue
Sociology of Education
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Published
2015-09-04
Volume
88
Issue
4
Pages
320-339
ISSN
  • 0038-0407 (ISSN-L)
  • 1939-8573
DOI
10.1177/0038040715602132
PMC
PMC5198720
OpenAlex
W2340753667
Cited by
162
References
3
Citations by year
2026: 17 · 2025: 16 · 2024: 12 · 2023: 23 · 2022: 19 · 2021: 20 · 2020: 16 · 2019: 14 · 2018: 13 · 2017: 11 · 2016: 1
FWCI
20.13
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
journals.sagepub.com/page/policies/text-and-data-mining-license (tdm)
Locations
  • Sociology of Education (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
  • KU ScholarWorks (The University of Kansas) (submittedVersion)
Funders
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R03HD073464)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Labor market dynamics and wage inequality
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Intergenerational and Educational Inequality Studies
  • Social Sciences › Education › Higher Education and Employability
Keywords
field of study, lifetime earnings, earnings trajectories, university graduates, gender pay gap, educational stratification, high school graduates, returns to education

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review