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The Emergence, persistence, and recent widening of the racial unemployment gap

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Author Info

  • Robert W. Fairlie
  • William A. Sundstrom

Abstract

Census data show that the ratio of black to white unemployment rates, currently in excess of 2:1, was small or nonexistent before 1940, widened dramatically during the 1940s and 1950s, and widened again in the 1980s. The authors decompose changes in the unemployment gap over the years 1880-1990 to identify the separate contributions of changes in observable worker characteristics and shifts in labor demand. Nearly all of the widening of the gap during the 1940s and 1950s can be attributed to regional shifts of workers and declining demand in markets where black workers were concentrated. After 1970, improvements in the relative educational status of black workers would have narrowed the unemployment gap slightly, but demand shifts adverse to black workers more than canceled out these gains. (Abstract courtesy JSTOR.)

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Bibliographic Info

Article provided by ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School in its journal ILR Review.

Volume (Year): 52 (1999)
Issue (Month): 2 (January)
Pages: 252-270

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Handle: RePEc:ilr:articl:v:52:y:1999:i:2:p:252-270

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Cited by:
  1. Horrace, William C. & Oaxaca, Ronald L., 2003. "New Wine in Old Bottles: A Sequential Estimation Technique for the LPM," IZA Discussion Papers 703, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  2. Robert W. Fairlie & Bruce D. Meyer, 1999. "Trends in Self-Employment Among White and Black Men: 1910-1990," NBER Working Papers 7182, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  3. Harry J. Holzer & Paul Offner, 2001. "Trends in Employment Outcomes of Young Black Men, 1979-2000," JCPR Working Papers 245, Northwestern University/University of Chicago Joint Center for Poverty Research.
  4. Kenneth Couch & Robert Fairlie, 2010. "Last hired, first fired? black-white unemployment and the business cycle," Demography, Springer, vol. 47(1), pages 227-247, February.
  5. Linda Dynan, 2008. "A Micro-Simulation Based Decomposition of the Health Status Gap Between US Blacks and Whites," New York Economic Review, New York State Economics Association (NYSEA), vol. 39(1), pages 3-27.
  6. Christopher J. O'Leary & Robert A. Straits, 2004. "Intergovernmental Relations in Employment Policy: The United States Experience," Book chapters authored by Upjohn Institute researchers, in: Alain Noel (ed.), Federalism and Labour market Policy: Comparing Different Governance and Employment Strategies, pages 25-82 W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
  7. Herve Queneau & Amit Sen, 2009. "Regarding the unemployment gap by race and gender in the United States," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 29(4), pages 2749-2757.
  8. Horrace, William C. & Oaxaca, Ronald L., 2006. "Results on the bias and inconsistency of ordinary least squares for the linear probability model," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 90(3), pages 321-327, March.

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