183 E.T. Hill Economics of Education Review 20 2001 181–191
ing data can be controlled for separately. Although the education and training questions were asked separately
by method only in 1967 and for the period covering 1977–1984, the majority 55 of the respondents
reported the acquisition of education, on-the-job training, and other technical, commercial, or skill training. Infor-
mation about all levels of education was available from 1967 to 1977 but only college from 1979 to 1984. This
study analyzes reports of at least one occurrence of a type of training rather than the duration of training.
4
Despite their crudeness, these measures provide some insight into the training of older women see Appendix
A.
3. Method of training—total sample and by occupation
A breakdown of the training incidents in Table 1 shows that 1882 women or 55, reported their training
method by 1984. Because many had trained by more than one method, the number of training incidents was
3073. A woman was included once for each method of training she reported. In about one-fourth of the incidents
Table 1 Training acquired after the usual schooling age
a
Respondents Number
Percent All women in sample
3422 100
Number of women reporting they 2127 62
ever acquired post school age training
Number of women reporting type 1882 55
of training acquired Training incidents
Number
b
Percent Formal education
815 26
On-the-job training 974
32 Other training
1284 42
Total 3073
100
a
Includes post-school-age training before 1967 as well as survey years 1967–1984.
b
Respondents could be included in more than one group but only once for each training method.
4
Using variables for the time spent training by each method which was surveyed between 1979 and 1981, rather than the
acquisition of training by that method, substantially reduced the number of cases and provided little information except to show
a positive correlation between time spent in college and in on- the-job training. Veum 1995 reports that it is the incidence
rather than the duration of training which is positively associa- ted with the wage level.
respondents acquired formal education; in about one- third, on-the-job training. The respondents classified over
two-fifths of the incidents as ‘other’ training, defined as neither formal education nor on-the-job training.
Because the skills needed in various occupations dif- fer, training methods might also differ by occupation.
Table 2 reports training methods by occupation. The last column indicates that on average, more than two training
methods 2.28 were experienced by women in pro- fessional and technical occupations who received train-
ing. The average number of training incidents appears to fall along with the skill level of the occupations. How-
ever, Table 2 reveals that the average number of inci- dents for all occupations is 1.63. Apparently, women
who train often train by more than one method.
Table 2 also shows the percentage of the incidents for each occupation by training method. Although education
was not used most often for any of the occupations, women in professionaltechnical and craftsmenforemen,
occupations requiring a high degree of skill, trained at least 30 of the time by that method. Sales workers,
managersproprietors, operatives, and clerical workers trained in formal classes in 24 or more of their train-
ing episodes.
On-the-job training was used in 30 or more of the training events for all of the occupations except farmers
and farm workers.
5
Not surprisingly, managers and pro- prietors, likely to need more training specific to the firm
than other occupations, reported a larger percentage 39 of their training as on-the-job training incidents.
6
In more highly-skilled occupations, education and on- the-job training were typically used to train workers
while workers in less-skilled occupations tended to acquire other training. Although not a direct comparison,
the large percentage of other training for all of the occu- pations tends to support previous studies observing that
women acquire more off-the-job training than men Loewenstein Spletzer, 1994; Veum, 1993; Lynch,
1991.
4. Who receives training?
