IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/2242.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

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

Author

Listed:
  • 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.

Suggested Citation

  • 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
    Note: DAE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w2242.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    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.
    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. 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.

    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. Motkuri, Venkatanarayana, 2004. "Child Labour and Schooling in a Histrical Perspective: The Developed Countries Experience," MPRA Paper 48416, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Shirit Katav-Herz, 2003. "A Model of Parental Demand for Child Labor with High Fertility Norms," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 1(3), pages 219-233, September.
    3. Lleras-Muney, Adriana, 2002. "Were Compulsory Attendance and Child Labor Laws Effective? An Analysis from 1915 to 1939," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 45(2), pages 401-435, October.
    4. Dirk Krueger & Jessica Tjornhom Donohue, 2005. "On The Distributional Consequences Of Child Labor Legislation," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 46(3), pages 785-815, August.
    5. Moehling, Carolyn M., 1999. "State Child Labor Laws and the Decline of Child Labor," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 72-106, January.
    6. Motkuri, Venkatanarayana, 2006. "Child Labour and Educational Deprivation of Children : A Review of Literature," MPRA Paper 48437, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Sonja Fagernäs, 2011. "Protection through Proof of Age. Birth Registration and Child Labor in Early 20th Century USA," Working Paper Series 2311, Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School.
    8. Dessy, Sylvain Éloi, 2002. "A Theory of the Emergence of Compulsory Education Laws," Cahiers de recherche 0209, Université Laval - Département d'économique.
    9. Mariapia Mendola, 2016. "How does migration affect child labor in sending countries?," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 286-286, August.
    10. Chakraborty, Bidisha & Chakraborty, Kamalika, 2016. "Low Level Equilibrium Trap, Unemployment, School Quality, Child Labour and Human Capital Formation," MPRA Paper 74621, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Margo, Robert A. & Aldrich Finegan, T., 1996. "Compulsory schooling legislation and school attendance in turn-of-the century America: A 'natural experiment' approach," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 103-110, October.
    12. Marco Manacorda, 2006. "Child Labor and the Labor Supply of Other Household Members: Evidence from 1920 America," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(5), pages 1788-1801, December.
    13. Jessica S. Bean, 2015. "‘To help keep the home going’: female labour supply in interwar London," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 68(2), pages 441-470, May.
    14. Dessy, Sylvain E., 2003. "Endogenous Technical Progress and the Emergence of Child Labor Laws," Cahiers de recherche 0317, CIRPEE.
    15. Dora L. Costa, 1993. "Explaining the Changing Dynamics of Unemployment: Evidence from Civil War Records," NBER Historical Working Papers 0051, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Adriana Lleras-Muney, 2005. "The Relationship Between Education and Adult Mortality in the United States," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 72(1), pages 189-221.
    17. Fabre, Alice & Pallage, Stéphane, 2015. "Child labor, idiosyncratic shocks, and social policy," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 394-411.
    18. Ainhoa Aparicio Fenoll & Zoë Kuehn, 2017. "Compulsory Schooling Laws and Migration Across European Countries," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 54(6), pages 2181-2200, December.
    19. Casey Mulligan & Tomas Philipson, "undated". "Merit Motives and Government Intervention: Public Finance in Reverse," University of Chicago - Population Research Center 2000-03, Chicago - Population Research Center.
    20. Fenoll, Ainoa Aparicio & Kuehn, Zoë, 2019. "Immigrants move where their skills are scarce: Evidence from English proficiency," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).

    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:2242. 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.