As the majority of married women are currently in the labor force, being a full-time housewife is no longer the default status for married women. The present study focuses upon the meaning of housewife by examining three factors which may explain the increase in married womens labor force participation in the past 30 years: economic necessity, increase in womens earning power, and changes in gender-role attitudes. Using data from the Census and Current Population Survey, we find that married womens employment status shows an inverse U-curve against their husbands income ranking. Whether controlling for age, educational attainment, the number of children, and the number of young children, married women are less likely to be employed when their husbands are either in the top or bottom brackets of the income distribution. Women married to husbands with higher incomes can afford to stay at home, if they choose. In contrast, those married to husbands with relatively smaller incomes may have to stay at home due to their own insufficient human capital. We also examine historical changes in the relationship between the husbands income and wifes employment status, taking into consideration the historical decrease in the average real wage among men. We find that the inverse U-curve became more pronounced between 1970 and 1980. The relative importance of the effect of husbands earning power on the wifes labor force participation has decreased for the last 5 decades or so. These results are consistent with the argument that American women, whether married or not, are expected to participate in the labor force unless they are retired, in school, or married to wealthy husbands.

Large increases in educational attainment have resulted in dramatic shifts in the composition of educational groups. Utilizing the 1960-1990 Decennial Census and other data sources, I account for these changes in composition using educational ranks cohort-specific relative rankings in educational attainment. For native white males between 1969 and 1989 accounting for changes in the composition of educational groups (1) explains about half of the increase in the college/high school weekly earnings differential, (2) results in increases in weekly earnings for the less educated, and (3) doubles the increases in experience differentials for high school less educated. These findings raise questions about the common research strategy of using educational groups as a proxy for skill groups over long periods of time.

Recent declines in the rate of marriage among Black women have been accompanied by substantial increases In rates of interracial marriage, especially between Black men amid non-Black women. Explanations for the retreat from marriage among Black women have focused on deficits bl the quantity amid quality of available partners, and the role of racial intermarriage largely has been ignored This study examines the impact of interracial marriage by Black men on the marriage prospects of Black women. First. our analysis of data from the 1990 Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) reveals that intermarried Black men are selective of those with the highest levels of education income, and occupational prestige. Second multilevel analyses, using both the IPUMS and Panel Study of Income Dynamics, show that the level of intermarriage in metropolitan areas is significantly related to the martial behaviors of Black women Local rates of intermarriage among Black men reduce the likelihood that Black women currently will be married and that they will make the transition to marriage. These effects are especially acute for highly educated Black women whose marriage,markets are defined by those Black men who are most likely to intermarry Finally, our analyses indicate that intermarriage affects the marital prospects of Black women by negatively affecting the pool of economically attractive marriage partners in the metropolitan area.

This paper examines changes in the time American children spent with their parents between 1981 and 1997, and the contribution to these changes of shifting patterns of female labor force participation, family structure, and parental education. Changes are decomposed into the parts attributable to changes in demographic characteristics and parts likely due to changes in behavior. In general, children’s time with parents did not decrease over the period, and in two parent families, it increased substantially. Population level changes in demographic characteristics were found to have only small direct effects on time children spent with parents.

This paper assembles new data and new methods for studying wealth inequality trends in industrializing America. Records of household heads from the census matched with real and personal property tax records for Massachusetts reveal that the Theil entropy measure of inequality approximately doubled over the period from 1820 to 1910, a gain that was divided about evenly between the antebellum and the postbellum periods. A surge between 1870 and 1900 dominated the growth in inequality following the Civil War. Decompositions of changes in the Theil entropy measure reveal that during both periods, inequality was increasing due to the shift of the population out of rural areas and agriculture into urban areas where wealth was less equally distributed. But the increases in inequality were also due to increasing inequality within population groups. Between 1870 and 1910, inequality was growing within occupations, age groups, and the native-born population. Proposed labor market explanations, including sectoral shift that led to higher wages in non-agricultural relative to agricultural sectors, biased technological change, and immigration are inconsistent with the fact that inequality between occupational groups was declining in the last decades of the century. Wealth accumulation patterns by age are also inconsistent with the hypothesis of child default on responsibilities for old age care, at least during the second half of the nineteenth century. To explain the salient facts, we are led to propose a new explanation based on luck, rents and entrepreneurship.

A major demographic trend of the twentieth century has been the dramatic decrease in the percentage of African Americans residing in the South. The Great Migration reduced the percentage of Blacks living in the South from 90 percent at the turn of the century to 53 percent in 1990. However, since at least 1940 there has been a measurable North-to-South counterstream of migrants, and since about 1970 there has been net in-migration of Blacks to the South. This in-migration includes northern-barn Blacks, as well as former migrants returning to the South. Prior research on the Great Migration, and its more recent reversal, has tended to overlook the experiences of Black women. In this study, we use the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series to describe the return migration patterns of southern-born Black women in 1940, 1970, 1980, and 1990. Our analysis has four primary objectives: a) to provide a broad overview of trends in return migration to the South for Black women during the last 60 years of the twentieth century, b) to determine the selectivity of female return migrants from the larger population of southern migrants residing in the North, c) to compare female return migrants with southern-born women who had remained in the South, and d) to help set an agenda for future research on female return migration. Although the focus throughout the article is on the return migration of African American women, parallel information is presented for Whites to provide a comparative perspective.

Many economists and policymakers believe that the growth in inequality in the last 2 decades reflects mostly an imbalance between the demand for and the supply of employee skills driven by technological change, particularly the spread of computers. However, the empirical basis for this belief is not strong. The growth in inequality was concentrated in the recession years of the early 1980s and any imbalance between the supply of and demand for workers with technological skills likely did not occur until later. The growth of the supply of more-educated workers decelerated during the 1980s, any impact of which would not have been felt until the late 1980s and 1990s. However inequality actually stabilized then. On the demand side, trends in occupational composition do not suggest that upgrading was particularly rapid in the 1980s and 1990s compared to the 1970s. Computers do not seem to have greatly affected employment in a number of narrow occupations that are likely to be sensitive to technological change (e.g., computer programmers, bank tellers), but computer use itself does seem to be associated with more education, even controlling for occupation. But the causal status of this relationship is uncertain and the magnitude of the association seems too small to have seriously compromised the ability of supply to meet the implied growth in demand. Other possible causes of inequality growth, including macroeconomic forces and the decline of institutional protections for workers, should be considered.

This study examines the role of variations in occupational licensing policies in improving the quality of services provided to consumers and the effect of restrictive regulations on the prices of certain services and on the earnings of practitioners. Theory suggests that more restrictive licensing may raise prices and at the same time raise demand by reducing uncertainty about the quality of the services. This article uses unique data on the dental health of incoming Air Force personnel to analyze empirically the effects of varying licensing stringency among the states. It finds that tougher licensing does not improve outcomes, but it does raise prices for consumers and the earnings of practitioners. These results cast doubt on the principal public interest argument in favor of more stringent state licensing practices.

This report describes the second-year results for an evaluation of the School Choice Scholarships Foundation (SCSF) program to award 1,300 scholarships so that children of low-income families in grades 1 through 4 in New York City public schools could transfer to private schools. Because the scholarships were awarded through a lottery, the evaluation allowed for the conduct of a randomized experiment in which students were randomly selected for a treatment (scholarship) group and a control group. As reported by parents, the schools attended by scholarship students were smaller than the schools attended by public school students. Private school parents were less likely to report serious problems such as fighting, absenteeism, and racial conflict at their children's schools. Students in private schools were asked to complete more homework than students in public schools. On standardized tests, students offered scholarships generally performed at about the same level as students in the control group. African American students offered scholarships scored about three points higher than similar students in the control group, and the impact of going to a private school for two years for African American students was four percentile points. No impact was seen for Latino students. Overall, findings suggested that the difference between the scholarship group and the control group remained about the same over the two years. About 62 percent of the students offered scholarships used them for two full years, and 12 percent used them in the first year but not the second. 24 percent of students offered the scholarships refused them. The most frequently cited obstacles that prevented parents from sending their children to the preferred school included cost (35 percent), transportation problems (14 percent), and lack of space at the school (10 percent). Findings show that 40 percent of parents who switched from public to private schools gave their schools an A; less than 10 percent of similar parents in the public schools gave their schools an A. Five appendixes contain discussions of baseline characteristics for the treatment and control groups, sample weights, the analytic approach, supplemental data, and estimates of ever attending a private school. (Contains 22 tables and 52 endnotes.) (SLD)

Tradicionalmente se ha establecido que la revolución mexicana se vio acompañada de un alto flujo migratorio a Estados Unidos. Existen evidencias de un incremento notable en el número de mexicanos en ese país una vez finalizado el periodo armado de la revolución mexicana. Sin embargo, dicho número representa sólo 1% de la población total en México. Es posible señalar que la Revolución fue sólo uno más entre varios factores que se conjuntaron para hacer crecer la migración de mexicanos. Es necesario considerar también aspectos económicos, reflejados sobre todo en California y Texas. Mediante el uso de diversas fuentes de información estadounidenses, ha sido posible desarrollar algunas estimaciones del monto de migrantes que pudo haberse dirigido a Estados Unidos durante el periodo revolucionario en México. Se busca identificar el porcentaje de ella que puede ser asociado al conflicto, para medir el impacto que la revolución mexicana tuvo en el contexto demográfico de Estados Unidos. /// It has traditionally been considered that the Mexican Revolution produced a high migratory flow towards the United States, for there is evidence of a noticeable increase in the number of Mexicans living in the U.S. after the armed period of the Revolution was over. However, this number of Mexicans represents barely one percent of Mexico's population at that time. It is possible to say that the Revolution was only one of many conditions that together contributed to increase Mexican migration, and among which we must consider economic aspects, specially regarding migration to California and Texas. Several U. S. data sources have allowwed researchers to estimate the amount of migrants who arrived to the U. S. during the Mexican Revolution, and this work attempts to determine the percentage that may be associated specifically to the conflict, in order to assess its impact on U. S. demographic conditions.

The study of the regulation of occupations has a long and distinguished tradition in economics. In this paper, I present the central arguments and unresolved issues involving the costs and benefits of occupational licensing. The main benefits that are suggested for occupational licensing involve improving quality for those persons receiving the service. In contrast, the costs attributed to this labor market institution are that it restricts the supply of labor to the occupation and thereby drives up the price of labor as well as of services rendered. Alternative public policies for this institution are identified.

Using a longitudinal design that links a sample of southern-reared African American men to their childhood census records (collected in 1920), this study attempts to replicate recent findings documenting the influence of skin color on the socioeconomic attainment of African Americans. The childhood census records used in this study classify African Americans as either black or mulatto, allowing for a unique investigation of color stratification in adult life. Consistent with previous research, findings point to the importance of phenotypic characteristics in influencing the life chances of African Americans. Subjects identified as mulatto enjoyed modestly higher adult socioeconomic status compared with subjects identified as black. While the mulatto advantage attenuates slightly once origin characteristics are considered, multivariate results indicate that differences in social origins are responsible for only 10 to 20 percent of the color gap in adult attainment. Findings suggest that color bias (colorism) rather than family background may be responsible for the bulk of color differences in the socioeconomic status of African American men.

Objective. We seek to describe trends in the geographic destination of Mexican immigrants to the United States. Methods. Using the Integrated Public Use Microdata Samples for 1910-90 and the 1996 Current Population Survey, we tabulate the distribution of all foreign-born Mexicans and recent Mexican immigrants (those arriving in the prior five years) by state and metropolitan area. Results. We find that early in the century, Mexicans went primarily to Texas, but after 1910, California emerged as a growing pole of attraction. California continued to gain at the expense of Texas through the 1920s and 1930s, but it did not surpass Texas until the Bracero Program of 1942-1964. Following the demise of this program, California came to dominate all other destinations; but since 1990, Mexican immigration has shifted away from it toward new states that never before have received significant numbers of Mexicans. Conclusions. During the 1990s, Mexican immigration was transformed from a regional to a national phenomenon. By 1996, nearly a third of new arrivals were going to places other than the five traditional gateway states, which historically have absorbed 90% of all Mexican immigrants.

This paper examines changes in the occupations of African-American women during the period 1940-1980 using U.S. Census samples, with an emphasis on the breakthrough of black women into clerical work. In contrast with some previous studies, my results indicate that increased educational attainment played a significant role in opening black opportunities for clerical jobs. But changes in education still explain less than half of the overall increase in probability of a clerical job, suggesting that declining discrimination may also have been important. Employing an illustrative tipping model of endogenous discrimination, the paper argues that a range of historical forces might have tipped the labor market toward an equilibrium with less employment discrimination. Some preliminary evidence suggests a potential role for public employment and the educational qualifications of the black labor pool.

Using a longitudinal design that links a sample of southern-reared African American men to their childhood census records (collected in 1920), this study attempts to replicate recent findings documenting the influence of skin color on the socioeconomic attainment of African Americans. The childhood census records used in this study classify African Americans as either black or mulatto, allowing for a unique investigation of color stratification in adult life. Consistent with previous research, findings point to the importance of phenotypic characteristics in influencing the life chances of African Americans. Subjects identified as mulatto enjoyed modestly higher adult socioeconomic status compared with subjects identified as black. While the mulatto advantage attenuates slightly once origin characteristics are considered multivariate results indicate that differences in social origins are responsible for only 10 to 20 percent of the color gap in adult attainment. Findings suggest that color bias (colorism) rather than family background may be responsible for the bulk of color differences in the socioeconomic status of African American men.

This paper is a comparative study. It investigates the earnings of immigrants relative to non-immigrants in four countries: Canada, the United States, Australia and Germany. Also, in this paper I address the question of the effects of gender, marital status, educational attainment, years since migration and country of origin as key explanatory factors on the earnings gap between different groups of immigrants. Although wages are only one aspect of labour market performance, comparisons based on wage rates are widely used to describe the labour-market disadvantages of paid employees in the designated groups.

Seeking to enrich our understanding of inequality movements, economic historians have used new data to illuminate the earlier darkness that Kuznets urged us to explore. To explore earlier worlds without income tax returns or modern household surveys, they have turned to non-income measures of purchasing power and well-being. The articles in this issue give a good sampling from this new wave of the economic history of inequality.