The Markov Assumption for Worklife Expectancy

Abstract

The worklife expectancy at age x ( ) x WLE is the average number of years that a person in a given cohort will spend either working or actively looking for work during the remainder of his or her life. In tables calculated by the U. S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), cohorts have been distinguished by sex, age, and either race (white v. all other) or for three groupings by level of education (see Smith, 1986). The BLS did not have sufficiently large samples to permit classification by finer educational groupings or for combined race and education, using their estimation method. BLS tables are constructed from information collected in the Current Population Survey (CPS), “a nationwide monthly household survey conducted by the Bureau of the Census on behalf of the BLS.” (Smith, 1986, p. 1) By matching interviews with the same person a year apart, the BLS knows whether each individual in the sample is active or inactive on each of the two dates. Of those who are classified as active in the first interview and who remain in the survey a year later, some remain active for the year, and others exit from the labor force; some people disappear from the sample, though, because they have moved, refuse re-interviews, could not be matched or die during the year. Of those who start the year as inactive and remain in the survey a year later, some remain inactive and others enter the labor force; those who disappear from the sample have either moved, refused the second year’s interviews or have died.

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