Changes in Life-Cycle Earnings: What Do Social Security Data Show?

A matched sample of Social Security and Current Population Survey records is used to examine life-cycle earnings patterns of white males over the 1951-1976 period. Estimated direct effects of schooling and experience compare well with other studies, but interaction effects with cohort do not. Younger cohorts exhibit smaller marginal returns to schooling and larger marginal returns to experience, but differences between cohorts are very small. When demographic factors, namely, veteran status, are controlled, direct cohort effects are linear in these data and show no tendency to vary with cohort size.