MEASURING EDUCATIONAL-ATTAINMENT - THE OLD AND THE NEW CENSUS AND BLSTAXONOMIES

After a half century in which education was measured by school years c ompleted, the U.S. Census Bureau has revised the measure of educationa l attainment focusing more on degree recipiency and providing greater detail for the diversity of college degrees. At first blush the new ta xonomy is a decided improvement on the old measure, but the statistica l comparisons suggest that the improvement is marginal at best. The ne w taxonomy shifts detail to higher levels of education where the popul ation is moving and where greater detail is therefore justified. We su spect the advantage of the new measure will increase over time, but th ere continues to be a need for specificity of areas of concentration. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.