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Title: The Wage Gains of African-American Women in the 1940S
Citation Type: Working Paper
Publication Year: 2004
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Abstract: The weekly wage gap between black and white female workers narrowed by 15 percentage points during the 1940s. We employ a semi-parametric technique to decompose changes in the distribution of wages. We find that changes in worker characteristics (such as education, occupation and industry, and region of residence) can account for a significant portion of wage convergence between black and white women, but that changes in the wage structure, including large black-specific gains within regions, occupations, industries, and educational groups, made the largest contributions. The single most important contributing factor to the observed convergence was a sharp increase in the relative wages of service workers (where black workers were heavily concentrated) even as black women moved out of domestic service jobs. Contact: Department of Economics, Box 351819-B, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37235. Bailey is a graduate student in economics at Vanderbilt University. Collins is Associate Professor of Economics at Vanderbilt. Bailey gratefully acknowledges support from Vanderbilt University, the Economic History Association, and the University of Illinois Foundations Rovensky Fellowship. Collins recognizes support from the National Science Foundation (grant 0095943) and the Brookings Institution. Yanqin Fan and Robert A. Margo made helpful suggestions. Claudia Goldin kindly provided data from the Palmer Survey. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the National Science Foundation, Vanderbilt University, or the Brookings Institution.
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Authors: Collins, William J.; Bailey, Martha J.
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Publication Number: 04-W16
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Data Collections: IPUMS USA
Topics: Labor Force and Occupational Structure, Poverty and Welfare, Race and Ethnicity
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