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Marriage Bars: Discrimination Against Married Women Workers, 1920's to 1950's

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  • Claudia Goldin

Abstract

Modern personnel practices, social consensus, and the Depression acted in concert to delay the emergence of married women in the American economy through an institution known as the "marriage bar." Marriage bars were policies adopted by firms and local school boards, from about the early 1900's to 1950, to fire single women when they married and not to hire married women. I explore their determinants using firm-level data from 1931 and 1940 and find they are associated with promotion from within, tenure-based salaries, and other modern personnel practices. The marriage bar, which had at its height affected 751 of all local school boards and more than 50% of all office workers, was virtually abandoned in the 1950's when the cost of limiting labor supply greatly increased.

Suggested Citation

  • Claudia Goldin, 1988. "Marriage Bars: Discrimination Against Married Women Workers, 1920's to 1950's," NBER Working Papers 2747, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:2747
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    7. Goldin, Claudia D., 1984. "The historical evolution of female earnings functions and occupations," Scholarly Articles 30703975, Harvard University Department of Economics.
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    Cited by:

    1. Heather Boushey, 2013. "The role of the government in work–family conflict in the US," Chapters, in: Deborah M. Figart & Tonia L. Warnecke (ed.), Handbook of Research on Gender and Economic Life, chapter 19, pages 307-322, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    2. Committee, Nobel Prize, 2023. "Scientific Background to the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2023," Nobel Prize in Economics documents 2023-2, Nobel Prize Committee.
    3. 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.
    4. Nayoung Rim, 2017. "The Effect of Title IX on Gender Disparity in Graduate Education," Departmental Working Papers 58, United States Naval Academy Department of Economics.
    5. Juliana Jaramillo-Echeverri, 2023. "La transición de la fecundidad en Colombia: nueva evidencia regional," Cuadernos de Historia Económica 60, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
    6. Leonora Risse, 2022. "Career and Family: Women's Century‐Long Journey toward Equity," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 98(323), pages 411-415, December.
    7. Ma. Christina Epetia, 2024. "Claudia Goldin and the economics of women and work," Philippine Review of Economics, University of the Philippines School of Economics and Philippine Economic Society, vol. 61(1), pages 71-86, June.
    8. Ana María Iregui-Bohórquez & María Teresa Ramírez-Giraldo & Sara Isabel Caicedo-Silva, 2024. "Las mujeres en la banca central: El caso del Banco de la República de Colombia, 1923-2023," Cuadernos de Historia Económica 62, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
    9. Baum, Tom, 2012. "Working the skies: Changing representations of gendered work in the airline industry, 1930–2011," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 33(5), pages 1185-1194.
    10. Ana María Iregui-Bohórquez & Ligia Alba Melo-Becerra & María Teresa Ramírez-Giraldo & Ana María Tribín-Uribe, 2020. "The path to gender equality in Colombia: Are we there yet?," Borradores de Economia 1131, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
    11. Tito Boeri & Jan van Ours, 2013. "The Economics of Imperfect Labor Markets: Second Edition," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 10142.

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