Susan B. Carter

Gender differences in learning and earning in nineteenth-century America: The role of expected job and career attachment

Abstract Quick, short-lived payoffs to experience in womens occupations about the turn of the century have led to the suggestion that gender differences in occupational distribution and wage rates were the result of profit- and income-maximizing choices in the context of differences in expected firm and occupational tenure. Using micro-level data on California workers in 1892 we develop the first estimates of completed firm and occupational tenure by gender. We show that, while womens tenure was indeed briefer than mens, the differences were too small to have warranted differences in training.

Economics and the Historian

Economics and the HistorianIssues on the Study of Economic Trends Institutions and Economic Analysis Labor Economics and the Historian The Economics of Choice: Neoclassical Supply and Demand Macroeconomics: An Introduction for Historians Money, Banking, and Inflation: An Introduction for Historians International Economics and the Historian

The "teaching procession"? another look at teacher tenure, 1845-1925

Abstract Prior to the Great Depression the turnover rates of teachers, especially female and rural teachers, were very high. These high turnover rates have led historians to conclude that the average teacher was inexperienced and had little professional commitment. Here we examine direct evidence on teacher tenure. We find that the teacher the typical student was likely to encounter taught for more than five years in rural schools and practically a lifetime in the urban schools. Personal characteristics associated with stable job attachment in the modern era exerted a similar influence on the tenure of nineteenth-century teachers.