Shani D. Carter

The Worsening Shortage of College-Graduate Workers.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) projections of occupational employment growth have consistently underpredicted the growth of skilled occupations. BLS currently projects that professional, technical, and managerial jobs will account for 44.5% of employment growth between 1988 and 2000, while we project they will account for 70% of employment growth. Between March 1988 and March 1991 these occupations, in fact, accounted for 87% of employment growth. The BLS’s projections of the supply/demand balance for college graduates have also been off the mark—predicting a surplus for the 1980s when, in fact, a shortage developed, and relative wage ratios for college graduates rose to all-time highs. We project that the supply of college educated workers will grow more slowly during the 1990s and that there will be a continuing escalation of wage premiums for college graduates.

Reexamining the temporal aspects of affect: relationships between repeatedly measured affective state, subjective well-being, and affective disposition

Abstract Research that includes measures of affect has often used measures of affective state, subjective well-being, and affective disposition interchangeably. The present study examined the relationships between three widely-used measures of these constructs. Examination of coefficient alpha and test–retest reliabilities indicated that there are temporal differences between the constructs. Confirmatory factor analysis models indicated that affective state correlates with subjective well-being, which in turn correlates with affective disposition. Results indicate that the constructs are related but not equivalent, and that researchers should ensure they use the most valid instrument for the construct they wish to measure.

Response to Kutscher’s Comment

Recent studies of trends in relative wage rates and unemployment rates are reviewed. These studies conclude that real wages of recent college graduates rose substantially during the 1980s while the wages of recent high school graduates fell, contradicting the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) claim that college graduates were oversupplied during the 1980s. The BLS approach to measuring the supply–demand balance for college graduates by counting the number of college graduates who say they are working in “nontraditional” occupations is dismissed as invalid because of the unreliability of Current Population Survey coding of occupation and education and the lack of attention to mismatches of the opposite kind such as the more than 5% of physicians, lawyers, and high school teachers who report having fewer than 16 years of schooling.