Earnings among young and mature Danish university graduates

This paper studies the association between graduation age and earnings
among university graduates in Denmark, which is a country with one of
the oldest student populations in the world. Exploiting a rich data-set
from administrative registers, the current study is able to track labour
market career for a longer period of time and to control for more labour
market-relevant variables than any previous study of graduation age and
earnings. The results show that graduation age has either a slightly positive
or an insignificant impact on starting wages within the public sector
or a negative impact on starting wages among private sector employees.
This applies to both genders, but the differences are stronger among
male employees. The analyses of long-term wages reveal a more homogeneous
pattern. Mature graduates earn less in all the years investigated.
The wage differences are greatest among male graduates employed in
private enterprises, and the gap increases throughout their careers.