Working Paper: NBER ID: w23397
Authors: William J. Collins; Michael Q. Moody
Abstract: This paper documents and explores black-white differences in U.S. women’s labor force participation, occupations, and wages from 1940 to 2014. It draws on closely related research on selection into the labor force, discrimination, and pre-labor market characteristics, such as test scores, that are strongly associated with subsequent labor market outcomes. Both black and white women significantly increased their labor force participation in this period, with white women catching up to black women by 1990. Black-white differences in occupational and wage distributions were large circa 1940. They narrowed significantly as black women’s relative outcomes improved. Following a period of rapid convergence, the racial wage gap for women widened after 1980 in census data. Differences in human capital are an empirically important underpinning of the black-white wage gap throughout the period studied.
Keywords: labor market outcomes; racial disparities; women's labor force participation; wages; discrimination
JEL Codes: J01; N12
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| black women's labor force participation rates (J21) | narrowing of the black-white participation gap (I24) |
| black and white women increased their labor force participation significantly (J21) | improvement of black women's relative outcomes (I24) |
| racial wage gap for women widened after 1980 (J79) | slower wage growth for black women relative to white women (J79) |
| differences in human capital (J24) | persistent black-white wage gap (J79) |
| observable characteristics (C90) | part of the wage gap (J31) |
| unobserved factors related to discrimination and human capital accumulation (J79) | persistent black-white wage gap (J79) |