The feasibility and importance of adding measures of actual experience to cross-sectional data collection

recognized the importance of work experience in analyzing the returns to post-schooling investments in human capital. Early work on human capital emphasized that on-the-job training can be as important a source of labor market skills as formal schooling. These skills can be learned through formal company-sponsored training programs or informally as workers learn by doing. Thus, any event that interrupts one’s career, such as childrearing, prolonged unemployment or labor force withdrawal due to discouragement, illness or injury, reduces one’s potential to acquire on the job skills. The issue of workforce disruptions is likely to be particularly important for women because, under a traditional division of labor in the family, they are more likely to have taken time out of the labor force in order to bear and raise children. These choices can lead to gender differences in the extent of on-the-job training and thus contribute to the gender pay gap (Mincer and Polachek 1974). Moreover, perhaps anticipating intermittent labor market attachment, women may choose careers with fewer opportunities for on-the-job training and investment (Polachek 1981). Alternatively, or in addition, firms may anticipate such decisions by women and place them in jobs offering less training. And, through feedback effects, gender difference