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Accounting for Racial Differences in School Attendance in the American South, 1900: The Role of Separate-But-Equal

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  • Robert A. Margo

Abstract

Everyone knows that public school officials in the American South violated the Supreme Court's separate-but-equal decision. But did the violations matter? Yes, enforcement of separate-but-equal would have narrowed racial differences in school attendance in the early twentieth century South. But separate-but-equal was not enough. Black children still would have attended school less often than white children because black parents were poorer and less literate than white parents.

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  • Robert A. Margo, 1987. "Accounting for Racial Differences in School Attendance in the American South, 1900: The Role of Separate-But-Equal," NBER Working Papers 2242, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:2242
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    1. Goldin, Claudia, 1979. "Household and market production of families in a late nineteenth century American city," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 111-131, April.
    2. Landes, William M. & Solmon, Lewis C., 1972. "Compulsory Schooling Legislation: An Economic Analysis of Law and Social Change in the Nineteenth Century," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 32(1), pages 54-91, March.
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    1. Funkhouser, Edward, 1999. "Cyclical economic conditions and school attendance in Costa Rica," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 31-50, February.
    2. Collins, William J. & Margo, Robert A., 2006. "Historical Perspectives on Racial Differences in Schooling in the United States," Handbook of the Economics of Education, in: Erik Hanushek & F. Welch (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Education, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 3, pages 107-154, Elsevier.
    3. Ager, Philipp & Brueckner, Markus & Herz, Benedikt, 2017. "Structural Change and the Fertility Transition in the American South," Discussion Papers on Economics 6/2017, University of Southern Denmark, Department of Economics.
    4. Panza, Laura, 2020. "The impact of ethnic segregation on schooling outcomes in Mandate Palestine," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    5. Celeste K. Carruthers & Marianne H. Wanamaker, 2017. "Separate and Unequal in the Labor Market: Human Capital and the Jim Crow Wage Gap," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 35(3), pages 655-696.
    6. Melinda C. Miller, 2020. "“The Righteous and Reasonable Ambition to Become a Landholder”: Land and Racial Inequality in the Postbellum South," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 102(2), pages 381-394, May.
    7. Moehling, Carolyn M., 2004. "Family structure, school attendance, and child labor in the American South in 1900 and 1910," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 73-100, January.
    8. Cid, Alejandro, 2007. "Educational Gap and Family Structure in Uruguay," MPRA Paper 39911, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Jung, Yeonha, 2023. "Formation of the legacy of slavery: Evidence from the US South," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    10. Canaday, Neil, 2008. "The accumulation of property by southern blacks and whites: Individual-level evidence from a South Carolina cotton county, 1910-1919," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 51-75, January.

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