Separate and Unequal in the Labor Market: Human Capital and the Jim Crow Wage Gap

Celeste Carruthers and Marianne Wanamaker ()

No 2015-01, Working Papers from University of Tennessee, Department of Economics

Abstract: We decompose the 1940 black-white earnings gap into that part attributable to differences in human capital and an unexplained portion that traces the upper bound of labor market discrimination. We find that differences in measurable human capital play a predominant role in determining 1940 wage and occupational status gaps. Our range of estimates for the unexplained gap, 11 to 17 log points, coincides with the higher end of the range of estimates from the post-Civil Rights era. We estimate that a counterfactual “separate but equal” school quality standard would have reduced wage inequalities by as much as 52 percent.

Pages: 39 pages
Date: 2015-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hrm, nep-lab and nep-lma
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Separate and Unequal in the Labor Market: Human Capital and the Jim Crow Wage Gap (2017)
Working Paper: Separate and Unequal in the Labor Market: Human Capital and the Jim Crow Wage Gap (2016)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ten:wpaper:2015-01

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