Moving beyond the STEM/non-STEM dichotomy: wage benefits to increasing the STEM-intensities of college coursework and occupational requirements. Issue 4 (4th July 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Light, Audrey; Rama, Apoorva
• Is Part Of: Education economics. Volume 27:Issue 4(2019)
• Page Start: 358
• Page End: 382
• Publication Date: 2019-07-04
• Subjects: STEM majors -- STEM occupations -- post-college wages -- gender differences -- matching -- measurement; I26 -- I23 -- J31; Education -- Economic aspects -- Periodicals; 338.4737
• DOI: 10.1080/09645292.2019.1616078
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0964-5292

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Using a sample of college graduates from the NLSY97, we introduce a new approach to assessing wage benefits of STEM training, STEM jobs, and the match between the two: rather than classify individuals dichotomously as STEM or non-STEM, we measure the STEM-intensities of both their college coursework and their occupational requirements. While the orthodox approach simply predicts that 'STEM pays, ' we find that workers at the top of both gender-specific STEM-intensity distributions are predicted to out-earn their counterparts at the bottom by a substantial margin – even when we condition on their dichotomous STEM classification – but that predicted log-wages do not increase monotonically with STEM-intensity throughout the entire joint distribution.