urn:uuid:218802f1-63c8-53a8-86dd-b9efa4f0ae71 New versions of this research opportunity and changes to the claims it rests on. 2026-10-13T00:00:00Z SocioLens urn:uuid:ed496522-fc45-5c24-9aee-b786caf059d1 2026-10-13T00:00:00Z

Narrowed after the literature check. The Census CES-WP-26-56 paper already measures initial penalties for the most AI-exposed majors, reports that they attenuate further from entry and compares the loss with "a large recession", so early-career penalties and a rough recession comparison are no longer open for the US. Only press coverage (Chronicle of Higher Education) reports a two-year figure (the earnings gap narrowing from 13% to about 5%); the paper's abstract gives no horizon and that figure is unconfirmed in the paper (it may conflate the 5-point employment drop). The abstract compares the loss with "a large recession" without naming the Great Recession. Years three to five, occupational match and catch-up, a same-model benchmark against recession cohorts, and any non-US register evidence remain open, so the question should be narrowed to those.

urn:uuid:3f84b3fa-40d4-5301-94b3-079941e9a8fa 2026-10-12T00:00:00Z

For graduates who entered the labour market between 2021 and 2025, do the employment, earnings and occupational-match penalties of AI-exposed fields of study narrow, persist or widen over the first three to five years after graduation, and how do they compare with the well-documented scarring from graduating into a recession?