William A. Sundstrom

The Emergence, Persistence, and Recent Widening of the Racial Unemployment Gap

Census data show that the ratio of black to white unemployment rates, currently in excess of 2:1, was small or nonexistent before 1940, widened dramatically during the 1940s and 1950s, and widened again in the 1980s. The authors decompose changes in the unemployment gap over the years 1880–1990 to identify the separate contributions of changes in observable worker characteristics and shifts in labor demand. Nearly all of the widening of the gap during the 1940s and 1950s can be attributed to regional shifts of workers and declining demand in markets where black workers were concentrated. After 1970, improvements in the relative educational status of black workers would have narrowed the unemployment gap slightly, but demand shifts adverse to black workers more than canceled out these gains.

Last Hired, First Fired? Unemployment and Urban Black Workers During the Great Depression

Throughout the Great Depression, the unemployment rates of blacks exceeded those of whites in urban areas of both North and South. Among men, this difference was largely due to racial differences in occupational status, whereas among women, unemployment rates were dramatically higher for blacks even within specific occupations. The occupational pattern of the unemployment gap suggests that labor market discrimination played a role, especially in unskilled service jobs.

The Decline and Rise of Interstate Migration in the United States: Evidence from the Ipums, 1850-1990

We examine evidence on trends in interstate migration over the past 150 years, using data from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series of the U.S. Census (IPUMS). Two measures of migration are calculated. The first considers an individual to have moved if she is residing in a state different from her state of birth. The second considers a family to have moved if it is residing in a state different from the state of birth of one of its young children. The latter measure allows us estimate the timing of moves more accurately. Our results suggest that overall migration propensities have followed a U-shaped trend since 1850, falling until around 1900 and then rising until around 1970. We examine variation in the propensity to make an interstate move by age, sex, race, nativity, region of origin, family structure, and education. Counterfactuals based on probit estimates of the propensity to migrate suggest that the rise in migration of families since 1900 is largely attributable to increased educational attainment. The decline of interstate migration in the late nineteenth century remains to be explained.

The Color Line: Racial Norms and Discrimination in Urban Labor Markets, 1910–1950

In both northern and southern cities of the United States, African-Americans faced a web of social constraints on such activities as housing, shopping, and everyday interpersonal interactions. These constraints had implications for the labor market as well. In particular, norms against white subservience to blacks played an important role in determining the racial composition of occupations. Close attention to the operation of such social norms can add much explanatory power to conventional economic analyses of discrimination based on human capital and taste for discrimination.

Internal labor markets before World War I: On-the-job training and employee promotion

Abstract The recruitment and training of a firms existing employees for more skilled positions within the firm was a widespread practice in U.S. firms at the turn of the century. Promotion ladders, although informal, provided a substantial number of employees with careers at a single firm. Evidence on internal recruitment from a New York State Bureau of Labor Statistics study early in the 20th century shows that promotion of workers was more likely in larger establishments and establishments employing a higher proportion of semiskilled operatives. Some plausible reasons for this pattern are discussed.

Was There a Golden Age of Flexible Wages? Evidence from Ohio Manufacturing, 1892–1910

Several macroeconomic studies have found evidence of diminishing cyclical wage flexibility in the United States since the turn of the century. But the importance of wage reductions during downturns must be questioned even for the era of allegedly flexible wages. This article shows that during the severe contractions of 1893 and 1908 only a small minority of Ohio manufacturing workers experienced cuts in their wage rates.The apparent downward flexibility of average earnings in these data was largely the consequence of changes in the occupational composition of the employed work force rather than pay cuts for individual workers.

The Geography of Wage Discrimination in the Pre-Civil Rights South

Prior to the modern civil rights movement of the 1960s, the pay gap between African-American and white workers in the South was large overall, but also quite variable across location. Using 1940 census data, I estimate the white-black earnings gap of men for separate county groups called state economic areas, adjusting for individual differences in schooling and experience. I show that the gap was significantly greater in areas where, ceteris paribus, blacks were a larger proportion of the workforce, plantation institutions were more prevalent, more of the population was urban, and white voters exhibited segregationist preferences. These results are consistent with descriptive evidence that discrimination in southern labor markets operated through discrimination in job assignments, which prevented black workers from acquiring skills and also depressed their wages through a crowding effect. They also affirm the enduring impact of slavery on the economic prospects of southern blacks: the proportion slave in 1860 is a powerful predictor of the racial wage gap in 1940.

Explaining the Racial Unemployment Gap: Race, Region and the Employment Status of Men, 1940

Although the substantial and persistent gap between the unemployment rates of African-Americans and whites in the United States first emerged in aggregate statistics covering the 1940s and 1950s, disaggregation reveals that the gap already existed in urban areas before 1940. Using individual-level data on male workers from the 1940 Census, the author analyzes the causes of the unemployment gap. He finds that racial differences in measured human capital and other characteristics can explain all of the racial gap in the South but less than half of the gap in the North. This result contrasts with results from studies of wages, which have found a larger racial residual in the South than in the North.

Rigid wages or small equilibrium adjustments? Evidence from the contraction of 1893☆

Abstract Contrary to the conclusions drawn from some macroeconomic studies, U.S. labor markets could exhibit considerable cyclical wage rigidity even before World War I. Using disaggregated data from Cincinnati manufacturing firms during the 1893 contraction, I estimate a threshold or friction model of wage adjustment that distinguishes between impediments to wage cuts and wage cuts that were small but possibly market clearing. The wage adjustment process exhibited friction which was both statistically and economically significant and which varied with establishment size, capital intensity, and payment method. Worker resistance to wage cuts was a factor contributing to this pattern of wage rigidity.

The Development of Public Libraries in the United States, 1870–1930: A Quantitative Assessment

The period 1870–1930 witnessed the emergence of the local public library as a widespread and enduring American institution. We document the expansion of public libraries in the United States using data drawn from library surveys conducted by the federal Bureau of Education. We then review causal accounts for that expansion. Exploiting cross-state and temporal variation in the data, we use statistical techniques to assess a number of plausible demand-and-supply factors affecting the pace of library development. Social and economic variables in the analysis include state income or wealth, urbanization, ethnic composition, and gender ratios. We also examine the effect of institutional innovations, such as state library commissions and library associations, that likely affected the establishment of public libraries. We confirm that library expansion was robustly related to urbanization and greater ethnic (immigrant) diversity and to institutional innovations and that it was greatly delayed in southern states.