Title: The wage gains of African-American women in the 1940s
First published: 2004
Description: "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"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site.
Subjects: African American women, Wages, History, Employment, Econometric models, Women
Places: United States
LC classification: HB1