Education, Skills and Inequality in the Labour Market

The race between education and technology is a key factor in determining earnings inequality. The aim of this project, which consists of several parts, is to contribute to our understanding on how the formation of skills generates inequality in the labour market. In a first project, previously unused micro data from the 1930 Swedish Census are combined with published aggregate data for later years as well as data on the micro level from 1960 and onwards.  These data are used to analyse the long run development of earnings differentials by education over time. In a second part, data on education is supplemented with measures of cognitive and non-cognitive ability to analyse recent changes in earnings inequality in more detail. The third part analyses the relationship between individual risk aversion and gender differences in outcomes in the labour market.