IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/0751.html

Have Black Labor Market Gains Post-1964 Been Permanent or Transitory?

Author

Listed:
  • Richard B. Freeman

Abstract

One of the most important questions regarding black economic gains post-1964 is whether they are permanent or transitory. This study examines the relative economic progress of black cohorts and of individual black workers in longitudinal samples to evaluate the permanence of changes. It finds that the preponderance of evidence runs against the proposition that the post-1964 advances have bS2- transitory or illusory. Measured by earnings of workers and occupational attainment, blacks have continued to make significant progress in the 1970s. Measured by the increase in earnings of specific cohorts, black gains did not dissipate due to slow growth of earnings.

Suggested Citation

  • Richard B. Freeman, 1981. "Have Black Labor Market Gains Post-1964 Been Permanent or Transitory?," NBER Working Papers 0751, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:0751
    Note: LS
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w0751.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Meyer, Robert H & Wise, David A, 1983. "Discontinuous Distributions and Missing Persons: The Minimum Wage and Unemployed Youth," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 51(6), pages 1677-1698, November.
    2. Orley Ashenfelter, 1970. "Changes in Labor Market Discrimination Over Time," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 5(4), pages 403-430.
    3. Lazear, Edward, 1979. "The Narrowing of Black-White Wage Differentials Is Illusory," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 69(4), pages 553-564, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Steven Shulman, 1984. "The measurement and interpretation of black wage and occupational gains: A Reevaluation," The Review of Black Political Economy, Springer;National Economic Association, vol. 12(4), pages 59-69, March.

    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. Dickens, Richard & Machin, Stephen & Manning, Alan, 1998. "Estimating the effect of minimum wages on employment from the distribution of wages: A critical view," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 5(2), pages 109-134, June.
    2. Dean Hyslop & David C. Maré & Lily Stelling, 2025. "Minimum wages and wage inequality in New Zealand," Motu Working Papers 25_04, Motu Economic and Public Policy Research.
    3. Steven Shulman, 1984. "The measurement and interpretation of black wage and occupational gains: A Reevaluation," The Review of Black Political Economy, Springer;National Economic Association, vol. 12(4), pages 59-69, March.
    4. repec:eee:labchp:v:1:y:1986:i:c:p:305-355 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Christopher J. Flinn, 2002. "Interpreting Minimum Wage Effects on Wage Distributions : A Cautionary Tale," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 67-68, pages 309-355.
    6. 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.
    7. Dolado, Juan J. & Felgueroso, Florentino & Jimeno, Juan F., 1997. "The effects of minimum bargained wages on earnings: Evidence from Spain," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 41(3-5), pages 713-721, April.
    8. Gordon B. Dahl & Matthew Knepper, 2023. "Age Discrimination across the Business Cycle," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 15(4), pages 75-112, November.
    9. Arnaud Lefranc, 1997. "Salaires relatifs et chômage : une analyse comparative France / Etats-Unis," Revue Économique, Programme National Persée, vol. 48(5), pages 1041-1060.
    10. Dolado, Juan José & Felgueroso, Florentino & Jimeno, Juan F., 1997. "Minimum wages, collective bargaining and wage dispersion : the spanish case," UC3M Working papers. Economics 10496, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Economía.
    11. Müller, Kai-Uwe & Steiner, Viktor, 2011. "Beschäftigungswirkungen von Lohnsubventionen und Mindestlöhnen - Zur Reform des Niedriglohnsektors in Deutschland," Discussion Papers 2011/4, Free University Berlin, School of Business & Economics.
    12. Hugo Jales & Zhengfei Yu, 2020. "Labor Market Policies in a Roy-Rosen Bargaining Economy," Center for Policy Research Working Papers 231, Center for Policy Research, Maxwell School, Syracuse University.
    13. Sara Lemos, 2004. "A Menu of Minimum Wage Variables for Evaluating Wages and Employment Effects: Evidence from Brazil," Discussion Papers in Economics 04/3, Division of Economics, School of Business, University of Leicester.
    14. repec:eee:labchp:v:3:y:1999:i:pb:p:2101-2163 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Kai-Uwe Müller & Michael Neumann & Katharina Wrohlich, 2018. "Labor Supply under Participation and Hours Constraints," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1758, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    16. Oliveira, Carlos, 2021. "How is the Minimum Wage Shaping the Wage Distribution: Minimum Wage, Spillovers, and Wage Inequality in Portugal," MPRA Paper 112534, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Haining Wang & Fei Guo & Zhiming Cheng, 2015. "A distributional analysis of wage discrimination against migrant workers in China’s urban labour market," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 52(13), pages 2383-2403, October.
    18. Eckstein, Zvi & Ge, Suqin & Petrongolo, Barbara, 2006. "Job and Wage Mobility in a Search Model with Non-Compliance (Exemptions) with the Minimum Wage," IZA Discussion Papers 2076, IZA Network @ LISER.
    19. Pedro Portugal & Ana Rute Cardoso, 2006. "Disentangling the Minimum Wage Puzzle: An Analysis of Worker Accessions and Separations," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 4(5), pages 988-1013, September.
    20. Richard Dickens & Alan Manning & Tim Butcher, 2012. "Minimum Wages and Wage Inequality: Some Theory and an Application to the UK," Working Paper Series 4512, Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School.
    21. Stijn Baert & Bart Cockx & Niels Gheyle & Cora Vandamme, 2013. "Do Employers Discriminate Less if Vacancies are Difficult to Fill? Evidence from a Field Experiment," CESifo Working Paper Series 4093, CESifo.
    22. Jeff Biddle & Daniel Hamermesh, 2013. "Wage discrimination over the business cycle," IZA Journal of Labor Policy, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 2(1), pages 1-19, December.

    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:nbr:nberwo:0751. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    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.