Explaining the Racial Unemployment Gap: Race, Region and the Employment Status of Men, 1940
William A. Sundstrom
Santa Clara University - Leavey School of Business - Economics Department
INDUSTRIAL AND LABOR RELATIONS REVIEW, April 1997
Abstract:
Although the substantial and persistent gap between the unemployment rates of African-Americans and whites in the United States first gained attention in 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.
JEL Classification: J64, J15, J11
Accepted Paper Series
Suggested Citation
Sundstrom, William A., Explaining the Racial Unemployment Gap: Race, Region and the Employment Status of Men, 1940. INDUSTRIAL AND LABOR RELATIONS REVIEW, April 1997. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=3618
