|
Ariell Zimran |
||||
| [About Me] [Research] [CV] [Teaching] [Official Bio] [Official Page] [NBER Working Papers] [Google Scholar Profile] | ||||
|
|
||||
|
with William J. Collins Explorations in Economic History, Forthcoming Revised version of NBER Working Paper 32774 (featured September 6, 2024) We examine new datasets of records linked between the 1940 and 1950 US censuses to characterize selection into military service during World War II and to analyze differences in veterans' post-war educational and labor market outcomes relative to nonveterans. Motivated by potentially disparate selection into and effects of service, we pay particular attention to groups distinguished by age, pre-war educational attainment, race, and nativity. We find that veterans were positively selected on pre-war educational attainment, but negatively or neutrally selected in terms of own or fathers' pre-war labor market characteristics. Younger veterans fared better in terms of education and labor market outcomes in 1950 than nonveterans who were observationally similar in 1940. Older veterans exhibited relative gains in education compared to observationally similar nonveterans, but not in labor market outcomes. Black veterans' relative gains in education were relatively large, but black veterans not in school were less likely to be employed than observationally similar nonveterans in 1950. All groups of veterans were more likely to be government employees after the war and were under-represented in self-employment. |