Arbritraging a Discriminatory Labor Market: Black Workers at the Ford Motor Company, 1918-1947

Christopher Foote, Warren Whatley and Gavin Wright

Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers from Harvard - Institute of Economic Research

Abstract: Before World War II, the Ford Motor Company was virtually alone in its hiring of black auto workers. If this was because other employers would not hire blacks, then the terms of employment at Ford might differ for blacks and whites. This paper uses Ford's own personnel data to test for racial differences in its terms of employment. We find that though entry wages for young workers did not differ by race, entry wages rose with age for whites but not for blacks. After being hired, most black and white workers received similar wage increases, making Ford jobs very attractive to black workers. Evidence suggests that Ford profited even without an explicit racial differential by hiring only the best black workers available and by disproportionately assigning them to the most disagreeable jobs. Ford's rigorous factory discipline facilitated racial integration and set Ford apart from other firms. While many aspects of Ford's policies were strongly progressive, Ford's response to its labor-relations constraints may have helped to perpetuate stereotypes that blacks were suited only for grimy and unpleasant work.

Date: 1998
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
Journal Article: Arbitraging a Discriminatory Labor Market: Black Workers at the Ford Motor Company, 19181947 (2003)
Working Paper: Arbitraging a Discriminatory Labor Market: Black Workers at the Ford Motor Company, 1918-1947 (2001)
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:fth:harver:1819

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers from Harvard - Institute of Economic Research Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Thomas Krichel ().