Working Paper: NBER ID: w2747
Authors: Claudia Goldin
Abstract: Modern personnel practices, social consensus, and the Depression acted in concert to delay the emergence of married women in the American economy through an institution known as the "marriage bar." Marriage bars were policies adopted by firms and local school boards, from about the early 1900's to 1950, to fire single women when they married and not to hire married women. I explore their determinants using firm-level data from 1931 and 1940 and find they are associated with promotion from within, tenure-based salaries, and other modern personnel practices. The marriage bar, which had at its height affected 751 of all local school boards and more than 50% of all office workers, was virtually abandoned in the 1950's when the cost of limiting labor supply greatly increased.
Keywords: Marriage bars; Discrimination; Married women; Labor force participation
JEL Codes: J16; J71
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Marriage bars (J12) | Employment of married women (J12) |
| Marriage bars (J12) | Firm practices (modern personnel practices) (M51) |
| Economic conditions (E66) | Marriage bars (J12) |
| Social norms (Z13) | Marriage bars (J12) |
| Demographic shifts (J11) | Marriage bars (J12) |