The geography of wage discrimination in the pre-civil rights south

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Santa Clara University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC HISTORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0507
• 发表日期: 2007
• 页码: 410-444
• 关键词: equilibrium search model; black economic progress; labor-markets; WELFARE-STATE; white; EMPLOYMENT; segregation; IMPACT; INEQUALITY; paternalism

摘要

Prior to the modem civil rights movement of the 1960s, the pay gap between Atrican-American and white workers in the South was large overall, but also quite variable across location. Using 1940 census data, I estimate the white-black earnings gap of men for separate county groups called state economic areas, adjusting for individual differences in schooling and experience. I show that the gap was significantly greater in areas where, ceteris paribus, blacks were a larger proportion of the workforce, plantation institutions were more prevalent, more of the population was urban, and white voters exhibited segregationist preferences.