World War II and Black Economic Progress

Schooling and Political Activism in the Early Civil Rights Era

“…We focus on occupational standing, both to reflect that Black men were denied access to certain occupations in the Jim Crow South and that occupational discrimination played a role in the suppression of the returns to education (e.g. Heckman and Payner (1989); Margo (1990a); Mohammed and Mohnen (2021);Ferrara (2022)).…”

“…Tolnay and Beck (1995) and Jonas ( 2005)) 15 receded as many young White men who traditionally served as the enforcers of the racial hierarchy in the South left to serve in the military (e.g. Ferrara (2022)). Racial tensions may have also been reduced by wartime messaging that encouraged national unity and other shifts in attitudes related to the War (Sitkoff, 1971).…”

“…We follow previous researchers such asCard and Krueger (1992b),Margo (1990a),Aizer et al (2022), andFerrara (2022), who focus on occupation in order to study progress during the World War II era.3 Throughout the paper, we define a county as rural if more than half of it's population lives in an area with at most 2,500 residents.…”

Women's Labor Force Participation and Household Technology Adoption

“…7 These data have also been used to study the effect of white casualty rates on Black economic progress in the Southern US by Ferrara (2021).…”