Education and Income-A Case Study

Scientific Essay from the year 2011 in the subject Communications - Miscellaneous, grade: 70%, McGill University, course: Techniques of Empirical Research, language: English, abstract: There is a popular saying that all Yalies earn at least $110 after graduation. One can wonder whether a high level of education necessarily guarantees a high income in the future. In this paper, I will argue that the higher the level of education attained, the higher will be the earned income. In order to validate such causal relationship, I will bring three control variables in my testing hypothesis: the spurious variable of gender, the conditional variable of racial background, and socio-economic status-being in the middle or working class. As a spurious variable, gender affects people's level of education attained and income. Being a woman or man predetermines people's level of education and income in the future. Indeed, women have less access to education than their male counterparts, and thus they will earn a smaller income. A possible factor that can explain this is the dominance of paternalistic family in most Western societies that encourage men to pursue higher levels of education.