High school to work: How did Millennials fare?

Abstract

This paper studies Millennials’ school-to-work transition by race and gender based on flow-sampled data. We construct labor market histories upon entry for a sample of high school graduates, and estimate a wage posting equilibrium search model. We find the labor market deteriorated substantially for white male Millennials relative to those in Generation X resulting in the disappearance of racial differences. Further, Millennial males search less efficiently but receive higher mean wage offers than females pointing to a gender wage gap driven only by productivity differences.