IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/mgtdec/v26y2005i8p513-525.html

The limits of the wage impact of discrimination

Author

Listed:
  • Elizabeth Becker

    (Analysis Group, 15th Floor, 10 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, NY 10020, USA)

  • Cotton M. Lindsay

    (Department of Economics, Clemson University, Clemson, SC 29634, USA)

Abstract

In spite of almost 40 years of active enforcement efforts by the EEOC, as well as the strong intervention by the plaintiff bar, the most popular benchmark by which we measure the influence of prejudice on wages paid to female and minority workers has changed very little. This paper maintains that to a large extent this seeming immunity of discriminatory wage gaps to the legal remedies provided by Title VII results from the mismeasurement of those effects. An alternative to the standard Oaxaca decomposition of the wage gap is offered which allows us to put plausible ranges around the true impact of antidiscrimination laws. Not only does this reduce the residual impact of the discrimination that appears to withstand Title VII remedies, it also suggests that the pre-Title VII impact of discrimination on wages accounted for little of the gap observed at the time of its passage. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Suggested Citation

  • Elizabeth Becker & Cotton M. Lindsay, 2005. "The limits of the wage impact of discrimination," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(8), pages 513-525.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:mgtdec:v:26:y:2005:i:8:p:513-525
    DOI: 10.1002/mde.1238
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1002/mde.1238
    File Function: Link to full text; subscription required
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/mde.1238?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Heckman, James J & Payner, Brook S, 1989. "Determining the Impact of Federal Antidiscrimination Policy on the Economic Status of Blacks: A Study of South Carolina," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(1), pages 138-177, March.
    2. Trejo, Stephen J, 1991. "The Effects of Overtime Pay Regulation on Worker Compensation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(4), pages 719-740, September.
    3. Blau, Francine D & Ferber, Marianne A, 1987. "Discrimination: Empirical Evidence from the United States," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(2), pages 316-320, May.
    4. Donohue, John J, III & Heckman, James, 1991. "Continuous versus Episodic Change: The Impact of Civil Rights Policy on the Economic Status of Blacks," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 29(4), pages 1603-1643, December.
    5. Jacob Mincer & Solomon Polachek, 1974. "Family Investments in Human Capital: Earnings of Women," NBER Chapters, in: Marriage, Family, Human Capital, and Fertility, pages 76-110, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Kenneth A. Couch & Mary Daly, 2003. "The Improving Relative Status of Black Men," Journal of Income Distribution, Ad libros publications inc., vol. 12(3-4), pages 4-4, September.
    7. Becker, Elizabeth & Lindsay, Cotton M, 1994. "Sex Differences in Tenure Profiles: Effects of Shared Firm-Specific Investment," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 12(1), pages 98-118, January.
    8. Ashenfelter, Orley & Smith, Robert S, 1979. "Compliance with the Minimum Wage Law," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(2), pages 333-350, April.
    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. repec:eee:labchp:v:3:y:1999:i:pc:p:3143-3259 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Kenneth Y. Chay, 1998. "The Impact of Federal Civil Rights Policy on Black Economic Progress: Evidence from the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 51(4), pages 608-632, July.
    3. 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.
    4. Kenneth Y. Chay & Jonathan Guryan & Bhashkar Mazumder, 2009. "Birth Cohort and the Black-White Achievement Gap: The Roles of Access and Health Soon After Birth," NBER Working Papers 15078, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. John J. Donohue III & Michael Ashley Stein & Christopher L. Griffin, Jr. & Sascha Becker, 2011. "Assessing Post‐ADA Employment: Some Econometric Evidence and Policy Considerations," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 8(3), pages 477-503, September.
    6. Kahanec, M., 2006. "Social interaction in the labor market : Essays on earnings inequality, labor substitutability, and segregation," Other publications TiSEM 9591d415-dea7-4f42-89e8-0, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    7. Christine Jolls, 2007. "Behavioral Law and Economics," NBER Working Papers 12879, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. John Donohue III & James J. Heckman & Petra E. Todd, 1998. "Social Action, Private Choice, and Philanthropy: Understanding the Sources of Improvements in Black Schooling in Georgia, 1911-1960," NBER Working Papers 6418, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. David Neumark, 2018. "Experimental Research on Labor Market Discrimination," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 56(3), pages 799-866, September.
    10. Robert A. Margo, 2004. "Ideology, Government, and the American Dilemma," Vanderbilt University Department of Economics Working Papers 0411, Vanderbilt University Department of Economics, revised May 2004.
    11. Richard Hornbeck & Suresh Naidu, 2014. "When the Levee Breaks: Black Migration and Economic Development in the American South," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(3), pages 963-990, March.
    12. Nayoung Rim, 2021. "The Effect of Title IX on Gender Disparity in Graduate Education," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 40(2), pages 521-552, March.
    13. David Neumark & Wendy A. Stock, 2001. "The Effects of Race and Sex Discrimination Laws," NBER Working Papers 8215, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Günalp, Burak & Cilasun, Seyit Mümin & Acar, Elif Öznur, 2013. "Male-Female Labor Market Participation and the Extent of Gender-Based Wage Discrimination in Turkey," MPRA Paper 51503, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Elaine Sorensen, 1993. "Continuous Female Workers: How Different Are They from Other Women?," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 19(1), pages 15-32, Winter.
    16. Fidan Ana Kurtulus, 2012. "Affirmative Action and the Occupational Advancement of Minorities and Women During 1973–2003," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(2), pages 213-246, April.
    17. Daniel Aaronson & Mark Borgschulte & Sunny Liu & Bhashkar Mazumder, 2024. "Schooling and Political Activism in the Early Civil Rights Era," Working Paper Series WP 2024-06, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    18. Stephen Pudney & Nikolaos Theodoropoulos, 2006. "Firm-Specific Gender and Ethnicity Pay Differentials in Britain," University of Cyprus Working Papers in Economics 9-2006, University of Cyprus Department of Economics.
    19. Dominique Meurs & Sophie Ponthieux, 2006. "L'écart des salaires entre les femmes et les hommes peut-il encore baisser ?," Économie et Statistique, Programme National Persée, vol. 398(1), pages 99-129.
    20. Amitabh Chandra, 2003. "Is the Convergence of the Racial Wage Gap Illusory?," NBER Working Papers 9476, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    21. Borghans, Lex & Weel, Bas ter & Weinberg, Bruce A., 2005. "People People: Social Capital and the Labor-Market - Outcomes of Underrepresented Groups," Research Memorandum 002, Maastricht University, Maastricht Economic Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).

    More about this item

    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:wly:mgtdec:v:26:y:2005:i:8:p:513-525. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/jhome/7976 .

    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.