We focus on minimum wage effects on less-educated workers in the present paper, For
comparison purposes, we also estimate the effects of minimum wages on highly-educated
workers to better understand the target group of minimum wage regulation (see Tables 8
and 9 for the employment effect and the working hour effect, respectively). There is an
interesting finding that a minimum wage increase only affects less-educated workers. The
results in Tables 6–9 also indicate that it is impossible for highly-educated workers to
replace less-educated workers, because there are barriers in working conditions and job
requirements. We find that employment has been substituted by working hours, and female employment has been substituted by increased employment and working hours for men.
Estimates from Tables 6 to 9 also indicate that human capital accumulation will help
workers to escape the negative effects of a minimum wage increase.