Racial Gaps in Labor Market Outcomes in the Last Four Decades and Over the Business Cycle

34 Pages Posted: 4 Jul 2017

See all articles by Tomaz Cajner

Tomaz Cajner

Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System

Tyler Radler

Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System

David Ratner

Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System

Ivan Vidangos

Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System

Date Written: June, 2017

Abstract

We examine racial disparities in key labor market outcomes for men and women over the past four decades, with a special emphasis on their evolution over the business cycle. Blacks have substantially higher and more cyclical unemployment rates than whites, and observable characteristics can explain very little of this differential, which is importantly driven by a comparatively higher risk of job loss. In contrast, the Hispanic-white unemployment rate gap is comparatively small and is largely explained by lower educational attainment of (mostly foreign-born) Hispanics. Regarding labor force participation, the remarkably low participation rate of black men is largely unexplained by observables, is mostly driven by high labor force exit rates from employment, and has shown little improvement over the last 40 years. Furthermore, even among those who work, blacks and Hispanics are more likely than whites to work part-time schedules despite wanting to work additional hour s, and the racial gaps in this involuntary part-time employment are large even after controlling for observable characteristics. Our findings also suggest that the robust recovery of the labor market in the last few years has contributed significantly to reducing the gaps that had widened dramatically as a result of the Great Recession; however, the disparities remain substantial.

JEL Classification: J00, J15, J16, J64, J7

Suggested Citation

Cajner, Tomaz and Radler, Tyler and Ratner, David and Vidangos, Ivan, Racial Gaps in Labor Market Outcomes in the Last Four Decades and Over the Business Cycle (June, 2017). FEDS Working Paper No. 2017-71, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2996084 or http://dx.doi.org/10.17016/FEDS.2017.071

Tomaz Cajner (Contact Author)

Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System ( email )

20th Street and Constitution Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20551
United States

Tyler Radler

Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System ( email )

20th Street and Constitution Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20551
United States

David Ratner

Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System ( email )

20th Street and Constitution Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20551
United States

Ivan Vidangos

Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System ( email )

20th Street and Constitution Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20551
United States

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
428
Abstract Views
2,382
Rank
124,465
PlumX Metrics