IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/labeco/v33y2015icp66-71.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The black–white wage gap among young women in 1990 vs. 2011: The role of selection and educational attainment

Author

Listed:
  • Albrecht, James
  • van Vuuren, Aico
  • Vroman, Susan

Abstract

In this paper, we compare the black–white median log wage gap for women aged 26–31 in 1990 and 2011. Two stylized facts emerge. First, the pattern of selection in the two years is similar — the gaps observed among women employed in 1990 and 2011 substantially understate the gaps that would have been observed had all 26–31 year-old women been working in those years. Second, both the median log wage gap observed in the data and the selection-corrected gap increased substantially between the two years, a fact that can be mostly attributed to changes in the distributions of educational attainment among young black and white women.

Suggested Citation

  • Albrecht, James & van Vuuren, Aico & Vroman, Susan, 2015. "The black–white wage gap among young women in 1990 vs. 2011: The role of selection and educational attainment," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 66-71.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:labeco:v:33:y:2015:i:c:p:66-71
    DOI: 10.1016/j.labeco.2015.02.006
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0927537115000214
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.labeco.2015.02.006?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert Moffitt & John Karl Scholz, 2010. "Trends in the Level and Distribution of Income Support," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 24, pages 111-152, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Derek Neal, 2004. "The Measured Black-White Wage Gap among Women Is Too Small," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(S1), pages 1-28, February.
    3. Pedro Carneiro & Sokbae Lee, 2011. "Trends in Quality-Adjusted Skill Premia in the United States, 1960-2000," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(6), pages 2309-2349, October.
    4. Joseph G. Altonji & Prashant Bharadwaj & Fabian Lange, 2012. "Changes in the Characteristics of American Youth: Implications for Adult Outcomes," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 30(4), pages 783-828.
    5. Chinhui Juhn, 2003. "Labor Market Dropouts and Trends in the Wages of Black and White Men," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 56(4), pages 643-662, July.
    6. Amitabh Chandra, 2000. "Labor-Market Dropouts and the Racial Wage Gap: 1940-1990," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(2), pages 333-338, May.
    7. Casey B. Mulligan & Yona Rubinstein, 2008. "Selection, Investment, and Women's Relative Wages Over Time," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 123(3), pages 1061-1110.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Zsófia L. Bárány, 2016. "The Minimum Wage and Inequality: The Effects of Education and Technology," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(1), pages 237-274.
    2. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/4jgjdlef848r49dq2dv8go26r7 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Kevin Lang & Jee-Yeon K. Lehmann, 2012. "Racial Discrimination in the Labor Market: Theory and Empirics," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 50(4), pages 959-1006, December.
    4. D’Haultfœuille, Xavier & Maurel, Arnaud & Zhang, Yichong, 2018. "Extremal quantile regressions for selection models and the black–white wage gap," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 203(1), pages 129-142.
    5. Lex Borghans & Bas Ter Weel & Bruce A. Weinberg, 2014. "People Skills and the Labor-Market Outcomes of Underrepresented Groups," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 67(2), pages 287-334, April.
    6. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/eu4vqp9ompqllr09i8hjg0kpi is not listed on IDEAS
    7. David J. Deming, 2017. "The Growing Importance of Social Skills in the Labor Market," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 132(4), pages 1593-1640.
    8. Chi, Wei & Li, Bo, 2014. "Trends in China’s gender employment and pay gap: Estimating gender pay gaps with employment selection," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 708-725.
    9. Michael J. Böhm, 2020. "The price of polarization: Estimating task prices under routine‐biased technical change," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 11(2), pages 761-799, May.
    10. Claudia Olivetti & Barbara Petrongolo, 2008. "Unequal Pay or Unequal Employment? A Cross-Country Analysis of Gender Gaps," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 26(4), pages 621-654, October.
    11. Christian Belzil & Jörgen Hansen, 2020. "The evolution of the US family income–schooling relationship and educational selectivity," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 35(7), pages 841-859, November.
    12. Christopher Bollinger & James P. Ziliak & Kenneth R. Troske, 2011. "Down from the Mountain: Skill Upgrading and Wages in Appalachia," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 29(4), pages 819-857.
    13. Jeremiah Richey & Nikolas Tromp, 2021. "The Black–White wage gap among young men in 1990 versus 2011: With sample selection adjustments," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 73(4), pages 780-805, October.
    14. Juan J Dolado & Cecilia García-Peñalosa & Linas Tarasonis, 2020. "The changing nature of gender selection into employment over the great recession," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 35(104), pages 635-677.
    15. Jared Ashworth & V. Joseph Hotz & Arnaud Maurel & Tyler Ransom, 2021. "Changes across Cohorts in Wage Returns to Schooling and Early Work Experiences," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 39(4), pages 931-964.
    16. Gallego Granados, Patricia & Wrohlich, Katharina, 2019. "Selection into Employment and the Gender Wage Gap across the Distribution and over Time," IZA Discussion Papers 12859, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Zsofia Barany, 2016. "The Minimum Wage and Inequality: The Effects of Education and Technology," SciencePo Working papers hal-03594158, HAL.
    18. Yona Rubinstein & Dror Brenner, 2014. "Pride and Prejudice: Using Ethnic-Sounding Names and Inter-Ethnic Marriages to Identify Labour Market Discrimination," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 81(1), pages 389-425.
    19. Barry T. Hirsch & John V. Winters, 2014. "An Anatomy Of Racial and Ethnic Trends in Male Earnings in the U.S," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 60(4), pages 930-947, December.
    20. Eric D. Gould, 2021. "Torn Apart? The Impact of Manufacturing Employment Decline on Black and White Americans," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 103(4), pages 770-785, October.
    21. Fortin, Nicole & Lemieux, Thomas & Firpo, Sergio, 2011. "Decomposition Methods in Economics," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 1, pages 1-102, Elsevier.
    22. Francine D. Blau & Lawrence Kahn & Nikolai Boboshko & Matthew Comey, 2021. "Th Impact of Selection into the Labor Force on the Gender Wage Gap," CESifo Working Paper Series 9103, CESifo.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Black–white wage gap; Selection;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:labeco:v:33:y:2015:i:c:p:66-71. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/labeco .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.