Full Citation
Title: Identifying Opportunity Occupations in the
Citation Type: Miscellaneous
Publication Year: 2015
ISBN:
ISSN:
DOI:
NSFID:
PMCID:
PMID:
Abstract: In this paper, we investigate the extent to which the U.S. economy offers decent-paying jobs to workers without a four-year college degree. We define an “opportunity occupation” as one that is generally considered accessible to someone without a bachelor’s degree and that pays at least the national annual median wage, adjusted for differences in local consumption prices. Focusing on the 100 largest metropolitan areas and using measures that reflect both the typical education needed to enter an occupation and the requisite education suggested by incumbent workers and occupational experts, we find that 27.4 percent of employment could be found in opportunity occupations in 2014. This estimate falls by more than seven percentage points — to 20.3 percent — when we predicate job accessibility on the educational attainment requested by employers in online job ads. The availability of opportunity-rich work for those without a bachelor’s degree varies dramatically across the metropolitan areas in our study, ranging from 36.6 percent to well under half that level. The educational preferences of employers as expressed in online job ads introduce a potentially significant barrier to economic self-sufficiency for those without a four-year degree, lowering the share of opportunity occupations by more than 10 percentage points in some metro areas. Our analysis suggests that since 2011, the level of education requested in job ads has become less stringent for some occupations and more stringent for others.
Url: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2660205
User Submitted?: No
Authors: Wardrip, Keith; Fee, Kyle; Nelson, Lisa; Andreason, Stuart
Publisher: Federal Reserve Banks of Philadelphia, Cleveland, and Atlanta
Data Collections: IPUMS USA
Topics: Labor Force and Occupational Structure
Countries: United States