ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes education's role in career earnings change in two countries: Germany and the United States. Two differences need to be emphasized. First, the connections between education or training and the world of work are more systematic in Germany than in the U. S., because the German system produces standardized education and training credentials that are a prerequisite for most skilled jobs. Second, job-specific training is occupationally based in Germany, while in the U. S. a great deal of job-specific training is provided within firm-based internal labor markets as well as within occupations. The American system generates earnings trajectories that tend to rise both with years of tenure in a firm and with years of tenure in an occupation. The looser linkages between education and early job placement in the U. S. should lead to stronger direct linkages between education and career dynamics in the United States than in countries where labor markets are more structured.
