Analysis of Gary Becker's Human Capital Concept: Article Review

This report provides an in-depth review of Gary Becker's concept of human capital. It begins with an introduction to Becker, an American economist and Nobel laureate, and his focus on the importance of education and knowledge as key components of human capital. The report overviews the concept of human capital, including education, job training, and health, and their influence on future income and economic growth. It highlights Becker's examination of the links between income and education, the importance of on-the-job training, and the distinction between general and specific human capital. The review further discusses the role of education in imparting skills and knowledge, leading to higher earning potential and better living standards, and the evolution of views on education over time. The report concludes that education and skills play a significant role in human capital, and it also emphasizes the importance of healthy diets. The report includes references to relevant books and journals, and is a valuable resource for students studying economics and related fields. The report is contributed by a student and published on Desklib, a platform providing AI-based study tools.

ARTICLE REVIEW OF GARY BECKER'S
CONCEPT OF HUMAN CAPITAL

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Overview of the topic...................................................................................................................1
Background of the author.............................................................................................................2
Main points addressed in the article. ...........................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
REFRENCES ..................................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
Gary Beckers was an American economist, he was an professor of sociology and
economics at university of Chicago, he was administrator of third generation at Chicago school
of economics. The article made will gives the importance of knowledge and education. Author
focus on human capital activities. The report will highlight the background of the author.
Further, the points are described which are addressed in the article (Faggian, Partridge and
Malecki, 2017).
Overview of the topic.
The author defined Human capital as an activities which influences future money and
income by increasing the resources in public. The main ares where the author focuses are
schooling on job training, also he give emphasis on medical care, searching for data about
incomes and prices and migration. The author focus on knoweldgea as it is the only thing which
makes students smart, as more the knowledge more smart the students be. Investment in human
capital refers to the education but includes other things also healthy diet. People should focus on
their diet also as all the people are busy now days and they don't have time to take care of their
health, so author suggest that they should focus on having healthy diet. Making i8nvestment in
physical capital making an new factory or upgrading their systems can give good result to
organisations (Faggian, Partridge and Malecki, 2017).
The author focuses on education as when students are educated and well developed they
will have great knowledge and higher skills. The educated students can get a better way of
earning as they will get better jobs than those who are not well educated. Educated students will
be demanded more for jons and have better living standards. Earlier there was a time when
people are not aware about the advantages of education so they don't send their children to
schools. But as when time comes they are also understanding the importance of educating their
children and they are sending the children to schools and colleges (Farkas, 2017).
The author in 1950s examined links between incomes and education and thoughts were
focusing on how much of abilities properly fit best with public theory and economic theory.
There was an general practices were labors were not treated in an good manners and the wrong
thing which was done to them was that the skilled and unskilled labors are both lumped together.
Skilled workers feels less valued when they are grouped with unskilled workers, this impacts
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their behavior and results in loss of productivity. Author believes that all the workers should be
given training on job as it sharpens their skills and helps them in performing well on job. By
giving training to the workers they also feel motivated and it results in overall work productivity
(Fleming, 2017).
After the second world war, when America helped millions of people in completing their
education, schools and university started receiving more attention from all the economists,
Becker were among them. The child how has never gone beyond the eighth grade, he wanted to
investigate the society structure. The author makes contribution to distinguish between general
and specific human capital. Specific types of capital arises when the staffs acquire knowledge
tied to the organizations. They use types of software for giving training to the workers.
Organizations are happy to pay such kind of training as it is not transferable (Glaeser and Lu,
2018). The organization focuses on teaching employees to become an good software developer
and after that if they want to shift they can shift according to their choice. The author made
assumptions that people must be teach ed to how much to be invest in their self human capital.
They would have compare expected earnings from different choices and considered the
education which they need to pursue. He know that the reality is an mess. He has an easier
assumptions about public being purposeful in their decisions, this lays the ground work for
elegant theory of human capital.
The theory explains that why the students of young age spend more time in schools rather than
the students of higher age. The theory also helps in spreading the knowledge of education,
advancement made in technologies, this made it more profitable to have various skills, this in
turn raised the demand of education (Glaeser and Lu, 2018).
Background of the author.
Gary Becker was born on December 2, 1930 in US. And the author was died on may 3,
2014. He was an American economist and was awarded with Noble Prize for economics in 1992.
Author applies various methods of economics to aspect human behavior, previously it was
considered less or more domain of sociology, demography, criminology etc. Becker was
educated at Princeton University and university of Chicago, from where he has done his Ph.D in
1955. He started teaching at Columbia university. In year 1970 he returned back to University of
Chicago as an teacher economics and in year 1983 he becomes a teacher of sociology also.
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Becker examined discrimination in labor markets, concludes that it has cost for both the victim
and perpetrator (Mahoney and Kor, 2015). In Human Capital (1964) the author argued that
investment in education, training and development is analogous to organizations investment in
equipment and new machinery. In year 198, Becker analyzed that household is a sort of factory,
produces products and services as meals, child care and shelter. By applying different theories of
manufacturing to household behavior, author was able to make the predictions about family size,
the role of women at workplace. Consistence work focused on subjects like addiction and
criminal behavior. From 1985 to 2004 author served as a columnist for the business week
(Ramaswami, Carter and Dreher, 2016) . In year 2000 he was awarded with national medical of
science and in year 2007 he received president medal of freedom, highest country civilian award.
In year 2014 Becker died in Chicago, at the age 83, in the same year he was awarded in a three
day conference held at university of Chicago (Mahoney and Kor, 2015).
Main points addressed in the article.
The main points on which the author focuses in the articles is the knowledge and
education. Both these plays an important role in the human capital. The idea was variable in
describing why some countries are far better than the other countries. It says that to promote
growth of income for many years, large investment in schooling is necessary. This spread light
on why companies in poor countries are tended to be more paternalistic, provides various
canteens and dormitories. The study informed higher increase in number of women's studying
finance, law and science since 1950s. As within the discipline, many objects which Becker had
overstated the importance of education (Mogstad, 2017).
Education plays an important role as it imparts, critics, knowledge, because of signals
about different people who complete university, the workers are well disciplined and more like
to become productive employees. Original analysis of Becker's focused on the personal benefits
of the students, but some economist who follow his footsteps expanded the field of study, as to
include wider social gains having well educated peoples. The importance of human capital is not
taken seriously nowadays. Author thought that their graduates can expect higher lifetime
earnings, rather than those students who goes to become lawyers and bankers. He made an
argument that it can become more productive and beneficial for the government to raise fund for
research and development (Popkova, Chechina and Abramov, 2015). They author should more
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focus more to invest on education and improving state of colleges and schools. The
improvements in the data collection methods and analysis gives to more empirical research
rather than wide ranging concepts which are favored. Technical advancement means that the
skills and knowledge which are gathered in schools are becoming outdated quickly. Therefore,
both possible and necessary human capital designs advanced systems for life long learning
(Raineri, 2017).
CONCLUSION
From the above study it is concluded that education and skills plays an important role in
the life of people. As when students are well educated they will understand the things in an better
way and lead their life in an desired way. The study also focuses on hygiene factors as people
these days don't focus on their diets so they need to have an good diet so that they can survive
better and do the t5asks more efficiently.
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REFRENCES
Books and Journals
Faggian, A., Partridge, M. and Malecki, E.J., 2017. Creating an environment for economic
growth: creativity, entrepreneurship or human capital?. International Journal of Urban
and Regional Research. 41(6). pp.997-1009.
Farkas, G., 2017. Human capital or cultural capital?: Ethnicity and poverty groups in an urban
school district. Routledge.
Fleming, P., 2017. The human capital hoax: Work, debt and insecurity in the era of
Uberization. Organization Studies. 38(5). pp.691-709.
Glaeser, E.L. and Lu, M., 2018. Human-Capital Externalities in China (No. w24925). National
Bureau of Economic Research.
Mahoney, J.T. and Kor, Y.Y., 2015. Advancing the human capital perspective on value creation
by joining capabilities and governance approaches. Academy of Management
Perspectives. 29(3). pp.296-308.
Mogstad, M., 2017. The human capital approach to intergenerational mobility. Journal of
Political Economy. 125(6). pp.1862-1868.
Popkova, E.G., Chechina, O.S. and Abramov, S.A., 2015. Problem of the human capital quality
reducing in conditions of educational unification. Mediterranean Journal of Social
Sciences. 6(3 S6). p.95.
Raineri, A., 2017. Linking human resources practices with performance: the simultaneous
mediation of collective affective commitment and human capital. The International
Journal of Human Resource Management. 28(22). pp.3149-3178.
Ramaswami, A., Carter, N.M. and Dreher, G.F., 2016. Expatriation and career success: A human
capital perspective. Human relations. 69(10). pp.1959-1987.
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