Historical Differences in Female-Owned Manufacturing Establishments: The United States, 1850-1880

Ruveyda Gozen, Richard Hornbeck, Anders Humlum and Martin Rotemberg

No 32575, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We characterize female-owned manufacturing establishments using newly digitized manuscripts from the US Census of Manufactures (1850, 1860, 1870, 1880). Female-owned establishments were smaller than male-owned establishments and had lower capital-to-output ratios, which could reflect more-constrained financial access and other distortions. Female-owned establishments employed more women and paid women higher wages, creating a potential cycle between increased female business ownership and increased female labor market participation. Female-owned establishments concentrated in sub-industries like women's clothing and millinery, which is associated with some but not all of these differences. We also show how female owners differed from other women in the Population Census.

JEL-codes: M1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his
Note: CF DAE DEV EFG IO LS PR
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w32575.pdf (application/pdf)
Access to the full text is generally limited to series subscribers, however if the top level domain of the client browser is in a developing country or transition economy free access is provided. More information about subscriptions and free access is available at http://www.nber.org/wwphelp.html. Free access is also available to older working papers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32575

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w32575
The price is Paper copy available by mail.

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().