ICSA Online Webinar: Where to Study? What to Study? Changing Horizontal Stratification in Bachelor’s Degrees in the 21st Century

Topic: Where to Study? What to Study? Changing Horizontal Stratification in Bachelor’s Degrees in the 21st Century

Abstract: Field of study is a stronger predictor of early-career earnings than institution, and its importance has increased over time. This reflects growing alignment between specific fields and high-paying industries, rather than changes in enrollment or demographics.

Speaker: Hunter York, PhD Candidate in Sociology at Princeton University; Incoming Assistant Professor, Department of Social and Political Sciences, Bocconi University (Fall 2026)

Moderator: Xiaoguang Li, Professor of Sociology, School of Humanities and Social Science, Xi’an Jiao Tong University

Time: May 15, 2026, 9 AM-10 AM Hong Kong SAR

Registration link

https://hku.zoom.us/meeting/register/B2BSoSRBQH2IBTnk5626QQ

Summary

A central question in the social stratification literature and for individuals interfacing with the US system of higher education is the extent to which college graduates’ earnings depend on what they study and where they study. Drawing on a novel dataset linking US bachelor’s graduates’ specific educational credentials—defined as the combination of awarding institution and specific field of study—to realized early-career earnings and industry destinations from 2001 onward, this study provides the first comprehensive estimates of the changing dynamics of horizontal stratification across institutions and fields in describing earnings inequality. Shortly after labor market entry, field of study predicts earnings more powerfully than institutional affiliation, and its influence has modestly increased over time. This growing salience reflects the intensifying alignment between specific fields and high-earnings sectors such as technology, finance, and professional services. Although variation across institutions accounts for a smaller share of earnings inequality, it is increasingly correlated with characteristics such as selectivity and enrollment numbers. These changes are not driven by shifts in enrollment patterns, nor by demographic recomposition, and there is no evidence that high-earning credentials have become increasingly concentrated within high-earning institutions. These findings point to an ongoing reconfiguration of horizontal stratification in which field-specific ties to high-earnings industries and the evolving ecology of educational institutions shape earnings outcomes in new and consequential ways.

Bio

Hunter York is a scholar of work, organizations, and education and an incoming Assistant Professor in the Department of Social and Political Sciences at Bocconi University in Milan (Fall 2026). He is wrapping up his PhD at Princeton University in the Department of Sociology and the Office of Population Research (Demography). His research examines how institutional structures like employers, educational systems, and labor markets shape social stratification and mobility across the life course. A central concern of his work is how the content and organization of work itself, including the tasks workers perform and the structural arrangements through which labor is coordinated, produces and reproduces inequality. He draws on demographic methods, computational methods, and rigorous causal inference to study how these processes unfold at multiple levels, from the internal architecture of workplaces to the broader educational and labor market systems in which they are embedded.