Changes in Relative Wages, 1963-1987: Supply and Demand Factors
Abstract
A simple supply and demand framework is used to analyze changes in the U. S. wage structure from 1963 to 1987. Rapid secular growth in the demand for more-educated workers, “more-skilled” workers, and females appears to be the driving force behind observed changes in the wage structure. Measured changes in the allocation of labor between industries and occupations strongly favored college graduates and females throughout the period. Movements in the college wage premium over this period appear to be strongly related to fluctuations in the rate of growth of the supply of college graduates.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
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?
Computerization has disproportionately affected routine jobs and increased the productivity of workers with complementary skills, contributing to wage inequality.
“Consequently, computerization has had a disproportionate impact on jobs that involve routine tasks, such as data entry, bookkeeping, and assembly line work, and reducing demand for workers performing”
From Generative AI at Work (2023) · cites this paper as Katz and Murphy, 1992
No citation lists for this paper
No citation lists for this paper yet — checked again daily.
References 14 · Cited by 4,793
- Authors
- Katz, L. F., & Murphy, K. M.
- Affiliations
- National Bureau of Economic Research (US)
- ORCID
- Murphy, K. M.
- Venue
- The Quarterly Journal of Economics
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 1992-02-01
- Volume
- 107
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 35-78
- ISSN
- 0033-5533 (ISSN-L)
- 1531-4650
- OpenAlex
- W2107497267
- Cited by
- 4,793
- References
- 14
- Citations by year
- 2026: 143 · 2025: 177 · 2024: 164 · 2023: 155 · 2022: 153 · 2021: 165 · 2020: 201 · 2019: 136 · 2018: 152 · 2017: 184 · 2016: 129 · 2015: 183 · 2014: 187 · 2013: 198 · 2012: 153
- FWCI
- 167.21
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- The Quarterly Journal of Economics (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Labor market dynamics and wage inequality
- Social Sciences › Gender Studies › Labour Market and Migration
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Migration and Labor Dynamics
- Keywords
- wage structure, relative wages, college wage premium, labor supply and demand, female labor force participation, university graduates, skill premium, United States
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
