Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP12992
Authors: Eric D. Gould
Abstract: This paper examines the impact of manufacturing employment decline on the socio-economic outcomes within and between black and white Americans from 1960 to 2010. Exploiting variation across cities and over time, the analysis shows that manufacturing decline negatively impacted blacks (men, women, and children) in terms of their wages, employment, marriage rates, house values, poverty rates, death rates, single parenthood, teen motherhood, child poverty, and child mortality. In addition, the decline in manufacturing increased inequality within the black community in terms of overall wages and the gaps between education groups in wages, employment, and marriage rates. Many of the same patterns are found for whites, but to a lesser degree – leading to larger gaps between whites and blacks in wages, marriage patterns, poverty, single-parenthood, and death rates. The results are robust to the inclusion or exclusion of several control variables, and the use of a “shift-share” instrument for the local manufacturing employment share. Overall, the decline in manufacturing is reducing socio-economic conditions in general while increasing inequality within and between racial groups – which is consistent with a stronger general equilibrium effect of the loss of highly-paid, lower-skilled jobs on the less-educated segments of the population.
Keywords: No keywords provided
JEL Codes: No JEL codes provided
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| manufacturing employment share decline (O14) | black men's wages (J31) |
| manufacturing employment share decline (O14) | black men's employment rate (J79) |
| manufacturing employment share decline (O14) | black men's marriage rate (J12) |
| manufacturing employment share decline (O14) | black women's marriage rate (J12) |
| manufacturing employment share decline (O14) | black women's poverty rate (I32) |
| manufacturing employment share decline (O14) | black women's single motherhood rate (J12) |
| manufacturing employment share decline (O14) | black children's poverty rate (I30) |
| manufacturing employment share decline (O14) | black children's likelihood of living with a single parent (J12) |
| manufacturing employment share decline (O14) | increased inequality within the black community (I24) |
| manufacturing employment share decline (O14) | widening racial gaps in socioeconomic outcomes (I24) |