The Wage Gains of African-American Women in the 1940s / Martha J. Bailey, William J. Collins.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bailey, Martha J.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Collins, William J.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w10621.

NBER working paper series no. w10621

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2004.

Summary:

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.

Notes:

Print version record

July 2004.