Becker observed that people do acquire general human capital, but they often do so at their own expense, rather than that of employers. 贝克尔注意到，人们是要获取一般性人力资本，但是，他们经常是自费获取，而不是用雇主的钱。

　　This is true of university, when students take on debts to pay for education before entering the workforce. 这对于大学来说如此，对于几乎所有行业的工人来说亦是如此。

　　It is also true of workers in almost all industries: interns, trainees and junior employees share in the cost of getting them up to speed by being paid less. 前者出现在学生为支付学费而在进入劳动大军之前而背负债务时，后者体现在实习生、受训者和初级员工通过少拿工资来分担让自己迅速进入角色的费用这个方面。

　　Becker made the assumption that people would be hard-headed in calculating how much to invest in their own human capital. 贝克尔提出了人们在为自己的人力资本投多少钱而算计时会精打细算的假设。

　　They would compare expected future earnings from different career choices and consider the cost of acquiring the education to pursue these careers, including time spent in the classroom. 他们会比较不同职业选择的未来收入，并且还会考虑为追求这些职业而获取教育的成本，如用在教室中的时间。

　　He knew that reality was far messier, with decisions plagued by uncertainty and complicated motivations, but he described his model as an “economic way of looking at life”. 他深知，虽说现实纷繁复杂，各种决定为不确定性和种种复杂的动机所困扰。但是，他还是把自己的模型描述为一种“看待生活的经济学方式”。

　　His simplified assumptions about people being purposeful and rational in their decisions laid the groundwork for an elegant theory of human capital,  他对人们在做决定时是有目的、理性的的简化假设为精妙的人力资本理论奠定了基础，

　　which he expounded in several seminal articles and a book in the early 1960s. 他在上世纪60年代的多篇开创性论文和一本书中阐述了这一理论。

　　His theory helped explain why younger generations spent more time in schooling than older ones: longer life expectancies raised the profitability of acquiring knowledge. 他的理论为解释为什么年轻一代比前辈把更多的时间用在学习上提供帮助：不断延长的预期寿命提升了获取知识的盈利性。

　　It also helped explain the spread of education: advances in technology made it more profitable to have skills, which in turn raised the demand for education. 它还为解释教育的普及提供了帮助：技术进步使得拥有技能更为有利可图，这反过来又提高了对于教育的需求。

　　It showed that under-investment in human capital was a constant risk: young people can be short-sighted given the long payback period for education;  他的理论表明，人力资本方面的投资不足是一种恒久不变的风险：鉴于教育的长久回报期，年轻人可能是目光短浅的；

　　and lenders are wary of supporting them because of their lack of collateral (attributes such as knowledge always stay with the borrower, whereas a borrower's physical assets can be seized). 同时，放债方会由于他们缺乏抵押品而对支持他们持谨慎的态度（像知识这种资本的属性总是与举债方在一起，而举债方的有形资产是可以被查封的）。

　　It suggested that there was no fixed number of good jobs but that highly paid work would increase as economies produced more skilled graduates who generated more innovation. 他的理论表明，没有固定数量的好工作，但是，高工资工作会随着经济体生产出更多的带来了更多创新的高技能毕业生而增加。