The Impact of Parental Education on Earnings: New Wine in an Old Bottle?

11 Pages Posted: 26 May 2009

See all articles by John Hudson

John Hudson

University of Bath - Department of Economics

John G. Sessions

University of Bath; IZA Institute of Labor Economics

Abstract

We examine the impact of parental education on the shape of an individual's experience-earnings profile. A number of factors suggest that parental education will affect the ability of an individual to translate labor market experience into earnings. Our empirical analysis of US data suggests that this is indeed the case. Higher parental education shifts the earnings profile significantly to the left - the profile of individuals with parents who both have 15 years of education peaks at 16 years of experience when their wages are 52% (24%) greater than those whose parents both have only 5 (10) years of education.

Keywords: parental education, human capital, earnings

JEL Classification: J30, J31, J33

Suggested Citation

Hudson, John R. and Sessions, John G., The Impact of Parental Education on Earnings: New Wine in an Old Bottle?. IZA Discussion Paper No. 4171, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1409215 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1409215

John R. Hudson (Contact Author)

University of Bath - Department of Economics ( email )

Claverton Down
Bath, BA2 7AY
United Kingdom
+44 (0)1225 825287 (Phone)
+44 (0)1225 323423 (Fax)

John G. Sessions

University of Bath ( email )

Claverton Down
Bath, BA2 7AY
United Kingdom

IZA Institute of Labor Economics

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
215
Abstract Views
830
Rank
257,227
PlumX Metrics