Discrimination, Human Capital, and Black-White Unemployment: Evidence from Cities

Shulman, Steven

doi:10.2307/145744

Cited by 26 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 10 publications

(4 reference statements)

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“…Larger residuals, however, would also be 6 The fundamental idea that discrimination is associated with a willingness to bear a cost for this taste is due to Becker (1957). See also Schulman (1986) for an adaptation of these concepts to a business cycle context. consistent with other unobserved factors such as tenure and educational quality being more important determinants of employment during recessions.…”

Section: The Last Hired First Fired Hypothesismentioning

confidence: 99%

Last hired, first fired? black-white unemployment and the business cycle

2010

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Past studies have tested the claim that blacks are the last hired during periods of economic growth and the first fired in recessions by examining the movement of relative unemployment rates over the business cycle. Any conclusion drawn from this type of analysis must be viewed as tentative because the cyclical movements in the underlying transitions into and out of unemployment are not examined. Using Current Population Survey data matched across adjacent months from 1989 to 2004, this paper provides the first examination of labor market transitions for prime-age black and white men to test the last-hired, first-fired hypothesis. Considerable evidence is presented that blacks are the first fired as the business cycle weakens. However, no evidence is found that blacks are the last hired. Instead, blacks are initially hired from the ranks of the unemployed early in the business cycle and later are drawn from non-participation. The narrowing of the racial unemployment gap near the peak of the business cycle is driven by a reduction in the rate of job loss for blacks rather than increases in hiring. These dynamic patterns and their timing have not been identified in the previous literature.

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Section: The Last Hired First Fired Hypothesismentioning

confidence: 99%

Last hired, first fired? black-white unemployment and the business cycle

2010

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“…3 Discrimination in hiring against women (and minorities) is more likely to decline if the labor market is tight enough (i.e., there is full employment), so that women (and minorities) can move up the hiring queue and discriminatory employers can thus be penalized, and not when there is substantial unemployment in the labor market (Shulman 1987). …”

Section: International Trade Wages and Employmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Importing Equality or Exporting Jobs? Competition and Gender Wage and Employment Differentials in U.S. Manufacturing

Kongar

2006

SSRN Journal

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in ABSTRACTThis study investigates the impact of increased import competition on gender wage and employment differentials in U.S. manufacturing over the period from 1976 to 1993.Increased import competition is expected to decrease the relative demand for workers in low-wage production occupations and the relative demand for women workers, given the high female share in these occupations. The findings support this hypothesis.Disproportionate job losses for women in low-wage production occupations was associated with rising imports in U.S. manufacturing over this period, and as low-wage women lost their jobs, the average wage of the remaining women in the study increased, thereby narrowing the gender wage gap.JEL: F14, J31, J71

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“…With two exceptions, however, studies of wage discrimination against blacks have ignored the wage-employment relationship, implicitly assuming that labor supply schedules are perfectly inelastic (Cain 1986). Shulman (1987) used complaints to the EEOC as a proxy for the incidence of employer discrimination, and found that discrimination reduced the probability of employment for black workers. The findings were not, however, linked to estimates of wage discrimination.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Employment Effects of Wage Discrimination against Black Men

Baldwin¹,

Johnson²

1996

ILR Review

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When labor supply curves are upward-sloping, wage discrimination against black men reduces not only their relative wages, but also their relative employment rates. Using data from the 1984 Survey of Income and Program Participation, the authors estimate wage discrimination against black men and, for the first time, quantify the effects of that discrimination on the employment of black and white men. They find that 62% of the difference in offer wages to black and white men, and 67% of the difference in their observed wages, cannot be attributed to differences in productivity. Assuming that the unexplained wage differential is attributable entirely to employer discrimination, then the disincentive effects of wage discrimination reduced the relative employment rate of black men from 89% to 82% of white men's employment rate. Thus, wage discrimination and its employment effects resulted in a substantial transfer of resources from blacks to whites in 1984.There have been numerous empirical studies of labor market discrimination in the United States since the publication of Becker's Economics of Discrimination (1971).Although the research is motivated by Becker's models, it has not fully tested Becker's predictions. One important omission relates to the effect of wage discrimination on employment.Becker's model of employer discrimination predicts that prejudiced employers will hire more than the optimal number of majority workers and less than the optimal number of minority workers. The ineffi-

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Discrimination, Human Capital, and Black-White Unemployment: Evidence from Cities

Cited by 26 publications

References 10 publications

Last hired, first fired? black-white unemployment and the business cycle

Last hired, first fired? black-white unemployment and the business cycle

Importing Equality or Exporting Jobs? Competition and Gender Wage and Employment Differentials in U.S. Manufacturing

The Employment Effects of Wage Discrimination against Black Men

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