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The Employment Effects of Gender-Specific Minimum Wage

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  • Marchingiglio, Riccardo
  • Poyker, Michael

Abstract

During the 1910's, twelve states passed and implemented the first minimum-wage laws in the history of the United States. These laws were applying to specific industries and only to female employees. This paper studies the employment impact of these gender-specific minimum-wage laws, using full count Census data from 1880 to 1930. We apply a triple-difference strategy exploiting variation across states, industries, and time, to both the full sample of U.S. counties and to the restricted group of contiguous county pairs. We estimate separate models for male and female adults, and find that these laws led to a decrease in female employment and an increase in the employment of adult men. Guided by a simple labor demand setting, we estimate the average elasticity of substitution between male and female labor, and show that the two inputs were, on average, gross substitutes. We provide suggestive evidence of a long-run impact of gender-specific minimum-wage laws on female labor force participation, after the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Suggested Citation

  • Marchingiglio, Riccardo & Poyker, Michael, 2019. "The Employment Effects of Gender-Specific Minimum Wage," Working Papers 290, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, George J. Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:cbscwp:290
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Minimum wage; labor demand; gender gap;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J23 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Demand
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • N3 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy

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