The Declining Importance of Race and Gender in the Labor Market

Dave M. O'Neill, June E. O'Neill

Description

The Declining Importance of Race and Gender in the Labor Market provides historical background on employment discrimination and wage discrepancies in the United States and on government efforts to address employment discrimination. It examines the two federal institutions tasked with enforcing Title VII and the 1964 Civil Rights Act: the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP). It also provides a quantitative analysis of racial and gender wage gaps and seeks to determine what role, if any, the EEOC and the OFCCP had in narrowing these gaps over time and analyzes the data to determine the extent of employment discrimination today.

Sujets

• Industrial Relations
• Labor Relations
• Political Science

Informations

• Publié par: AEI Press
• Date de parution: 16 décembre 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780844772462
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Declining Importance of Race and Gender in the Labor Market
The Declining Importance of Race and Gender in the Labor Market

The Role of Employment Discrimination Policies

June E. O’Neill Dave M. O’Neill



The AEI Press

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
O’Neill, June.
The declining importance of race and gender in the labor market : the role of employment discrimination policies / June E. O’Neill, Dave M. O’Neill.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8447-7244-8 (cloth : alk. paper) —ISBN 0-8447-7244-5 (cloth : alk. paper) —ISBN 978-0-8447-7246-2 (ebook : alk. paper) —ISBN 0-8447-7246-1 (ebook : alk. paper)
1. Discrimination in employment—United States. 2. Discrimination in employment—Government policy—United States. 3. Discrimination—Law and legislation—United States. 4. Labor market—United States. I. O’Neill, David M. II. Title.
HD4903.5.U58O54 2012
331.13'30973—dc23
2012019621
© 2012 by the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, Washington, D.C. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission in writing from the American Enterprise Institute except in the case of brief quotations embodied in news articles, critical articles, or reviews. The views expressed in the publications of the American Enterprise Institute are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the staff, advisory panels, officers, or trustees of AEI.
Printed in the United States of America
Acknowledgments
This study began as part of a series of evaluations of government agencies commissioned by the American Enterprise Institute. Marvin kosters, the director of the series, approached us about writing on the agencies that were charged with implementing antidiscrimination law—the Office of Federal Contracting Programs (OFCCP) and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). These agencies are relatively small and perhaps mysterious to the average American, but they deal with the important issue of labor market discrimination and often employ controversial methods such as affirmative action. We agreed to take on the study, but soon realized that it could not be effective without broadening the topic. In order to make judgments about the effect the government agencies may have had on remedying discriminatory pay differentials, it is necessary to analyze the roles played by other forces that influence pay gaps, such as education and work experience. It is also important to examine how pay gaps changed in the years before the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and before the creation and strengthening of the OFCCP and EEOC in the 1960s and 1970s. As often happens with complex topics, the scope of work grows, so what began as a standard evaluation of government agencies became a major study of the change in racial and gender pay differentials over many decades and the role of government involvement in this change—which includes not only the agencies but the legal and judicial establishments.
We thank Dr. kosters for setting us on the right path with extensive comments in the early stages of the study. We were ably assisted in the early stages by Andreas Lachnit. The extensive statistical analyses were proficiently conducted by Mei Liao and Wenhui Li. Financial support was received from the American Enterprise Institute, the Olin Foundation, the Weisman Foundation, a PSC-CUNY award, and the Wasserman Department of Economics and Finance at Baruch College. We are also grateful for the assistance of Jacquie Pfeffer-Merrill, who edited the manuscript.
List of Illustrations
Figures 5-1 Black–White Wage Ratios, 1939–2010 5-2 Trends in Real Hourly Earnings from 1940–80 of Men and Women by Race and Education 5-3 Female Labor Force Participation Rates by Race:1954–2010 (Ages 25–54) 5-4 Male Labor Force Participation Rates by Race:1954–2010 (Ages 25–54) 5-5 Percent of Men Who Worked at Some Time during the Year, by Race and Education: 1967–2009 5-6 Trends in Real Hourly Earnings from 1979 to 2010 of Men and Women by Race and Education 6-1 The Gender Gap: Female–Male Wage Ratios (1955–2010) 6-2 Labor Force Participation Rates by Sex: 1948–2010 Ages 25–54) 6-3 Labor Force Participation Rates over a Working Life of Cohorts of Women Born in Selected Time Intervals, 1886 to 1965 8-1 Average Hourly Earnings of Asian, Black, and Hispanic Men as Percent of Hourly Earnings of Non-Hispanic White Men, Full-Time Workers Ages 25–54, 1979–2010 8-2 Average Hourly Earnings of Asian, Black, and Hispanic Women as Percent of Hourly Earnings of Non-Hispanic White Women, Full-Time Workers Ages 25–54, 1979–2010 8-3 Employment Status of Women and Men with Children by Age of Children, 2009
Tables 1-1 Educational Attainment by Race at Ages 25–29, 1920–60 1-2 Labor Force Participation and Characteristics of Workers by Race and Sex, Ages 25–54 1-3 Black–White Wage Ratios by Sex, Region, and Education,1940 and 1960 3-1 Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) Performance and Program Statistics 4-1 EEOC Charges Received under Title VII by Type of Discrimination Claimed 4-2 EEOC Charges and Resolutions under Title VII 5-1 Educational Attainment of Men and Women by Race and Age, 1940–2009 5-2 Mean AFQT Percentile Test Score of Men Ages 19–21 by Race and Education 5-3 Changes in the Wage Differentials by Education, 1940–2010:Wage Ratios of College Graduates to High School Graduates; High School Graduates to High School Dropouts 5-4 Trends in Wage Inequality: Changes in Hourly Wage Ratios between Different Percentiles of the Wage Distribution, 1979–2009 5-5 Black–White Wage Ratios for Men and Women by Age,Education, and Region, 1940–60 5-6 Occupational Distributions of Black and White Men and Women, 1940–80 (Percentage Distributions) 5-7 Black–White Wage Ratios for Men and Women by Education and Region, 1940–2000 5-8 Male Black–White Weekly Wage Ratios in the South and the Non-South by Education, 1940–2000, Ages 25–54 5-9 Female Black–White Hourly Wage Ratios in the South and the Non-South by Education, 1940–2000, Ages 25–54 5-10 The Change in the Hourly Wage Ratio between Black Women and White Women and Black Women and White Men, 1960–80 and 1979–2009 6-1 Percent of Women in the Labor Force by Marital Status and Age 6-2 Proportion of Years Worked since Age 18 by Employed White Women 6-3 Educational Attainment of Men and Women: Percent of All Persons and of Workers Completing High School or More and College or More (Ages 25–54), 1940–2000 6-4 Women’s Share of Bachelor’s, Master’s, and Doctor’s Degrees in Selected Field of Study: 1972–2009 6-5 Percent of First-Professional Degrees Earned by Women in Dentistry, Medicine, and Law: Selected Years, 1949–50 through 2008–9 7-1 Percent of Workers Employed in EEO-1 Reporting Firms by Federal Contractor Status and Race and Sex of Worker 7-2 Relative Occupational Advancement of Protected Workers in Federal Contractor and Non-contractor Firms (1970–1980) 7-3 Does Employment in the Federal Contractor Sector Increase the Wage Rate of Protected Groups? Results from Regression Analysis (2000) 8-1 Minority/White Wage Ratios for Detailed Racial and Ethnic Groups of Men (Ages 25–54) before and after Controlling for Skill-Related Characteristics 8-2 Minority/White Wage Ratios for Detailed Racial and Ethnic Groups of Women (Ages 25–54) before and after Controlling for Skill-Related Characteristics 8-3 Selected Characteristics of Men by Race (NLSY79) 8-4 Explaining the Black–White and Hispanic–White Wage Gaps Among Men 8-5 Explaining the Male Black–White and Hispanic–White Wage Gaps at Different Education Levels 8-6 Selected Characteristics of Women by Race (NLSY79) 8-7 Explaining the Black–White and Hispanic–White Wage Gaps among Women 8-8 Explaining the Female Black–White and Hispanic–White Wage Gaps at Different Education Levels 8-9 What Working Situation Would Be Ideal for You? Results from a 2007 Pew Research Center Survey 8-10 Average Hours Spent per Day in Child Care, Work, and Other Activities by Age of Youngest Child, for Employed Women and Men Ages 20–44 Reporting Time Use on a Weekday, 2003–2004 Annual Averages, ATUS Data 8-11 Selected Characteristics of Men and Women (NLSY79) 8-12 Explaining the Gender Wage Gap: Female-Male Hourly Wage Ratios (NLSY79) 8-13 Selected Characteristics of Men and Women by Marital Status (NLSY79) 8-14 Explaining the Gender Wage Gap: Female-Male Hourly Wage Ratios by Marital Status (NLSY79)
Appendix 7A-1 Industry/Region Cross-Sectional Regression: Dependent Variable—Log Hourly Rate of Pay in 2000, by Sex and Race 7A-2 MSA Cross-Sectional Regression: Dependent Variable—Log Hourly Rate of Pay in 2000, by Sex and Race 8A-1 Means and Partial Regression Coefficients of Explanatory Variables from Separate Log Wage Regressions for Black, White, and Hispanic Men Ages 35–43 in 2000 (NLSY79) 8A-2 Means and Partial Regression Coefficients of Explanatory Variables from Separate Log Wage Regressions for Black, White, and Hispanic Women Ages 35–43 in 2000 (NLSY79) 8A-3 Means and Partial Regression Coefficients of Explanatory Variables from Separate Log Wage Regressions for Men and Women Ages 35–43 in 2000 (NLSY79) 8A-4 Explaining the Source of the Gender Wage Gaps (NLSY79 in 2000)
Introduction and Summary
In his Saturday morning address to the nation on March 12, 2011, President Obama deplored what he saw as widespread gender discrimination in pay, citing a statistic that women earn only 75 percent as much as men. He invoked that fig