Assignment:
I. What were the general trends in living conditions between 1890 and 1940 and how did they compare to the trends after WW11?
A. How had the typical job and urban home changed between 1890 and 1940. How did this affect how households allocated their time?
B. What happened to the graduate rate and in which era did it happen? What trends have we seen in college performance/graduation that worry the author?
C. How did retirement evolve prior to the 1920's? What were the catalysts of this?
II. How did "white collar" work evolve and what where its consequences?
A. How the nature of employment change between 1950 and 1970?
Which types of jobs saw an outflow and which an inflow?
B. What were the effects of the above changes on living standards and job safety?
C. What does Gordon identify as the driver of higher productivity in the destination occupations described above? Which invention seems key to this rise?
D. What does Gordon mean by the clear overlap between blue collar and white collar ambitions and successes between 1940's and 1970's? Why did Claudia Goldin label this the "Great Compression?"
E. What consequences does Gordon highlight as coming from the above? How has the relationship changed since the 1970's?
III. What was the timing and causes of the increase in female labor force participation?
A. How did WWII and its conclusion lead to changes in labor supply and house technology? How did this affect time spent on home production by a typical housewife?
B. What happened to the age of marriage prior to 1970? How did this affect college attendance?
C. Which decades experienced the greatest growth in labor participation by women? How does Figure show this? What has happened in the last decade?
D. How have male and female labor outcomes changed over this time?
What does figure 15-3 tell us about the relationship between earnings of these groups? How have they fared recently?
E. What does Gordon believe explains the recent trend?
F. How does Goldin split the gap between the part do to "identifiable characteristics" and the unexplained portion? What does she mean by these terms? Why does she also consider occupational choices as a potential explanation? How much can it account for?
G. Ultimately what does Goldin find as the pattern of the wage gap over worker's lifetime? What does she find drives this?
IV. How have trends in college education lead to changes in the distribution of occupatons and income? How have these trends influence the nature of college in turn?
A. How has college completion changed since 1984? What data is presented in Figures ? How has the female-male split changed over this period?
B. What reasons does Gordon give for the decline in male college attendance?
C. How have the effects of college education on unemployment and earnings changed since 1992?
V. How have the numbers and living standards of the retired changed since 1940?
A. When did companies start in mass offering private pensions? How did the post-WWII generation fund their retirements?
B. Why does Gordon call the 1970's the "Golden Age" of Pensions? Why does he highlight the importance of ERISA and what did it do?
C. How do typical retirees spend their time? Why does Gordon present that number?
D. What policy issue does Gordon identify with the "progressive growth of the elderly population"? Why might their consumption "needs be greater"?