Changes in the Labor Market for Black Americans, 1948-72

Abstract

Changes i n t he Labor Market for Black Americans, 1948-72 THE ECONOMIC STATUS OF BLACK AMERICANS has changed greatly over the past two decades. In some aspects of market position-years of school completed, occupational attainment, and income-blacks have risen relative to whites. Other measures of economic status-employment, unemployment, and labor force participation-reveal marked black-white differences in annual and longer-run patterns of change. Some groups of black workers-women and college-trained men-experienced extraordinary economic advance compared to whites. While black-white differences have not disappeared, the convergence in economic position in the fifties and sixties suggests a virtual collapse in traditional discriminatory patterns in the labor market. This paper examines the secular and cyclical dimensions of changes in the market for black labor since World War II and seeks to determine the economic and social forces at work. It begins with a broad overview of market developments during this period, highlighting four critical dimensions of change: the secular improvement in the relative income and occupational position of blacks; the more rapid relative advance black women experienced compared with black men; the greater sensitivity, compared with whites, of employment and income of black men to short-* Jerome Culp did his usual excellent job as research assistant for this paper. I benefited from the comments of Zvi Griliches, Duran Bell, and members of the Brookings panel, among others. 67 68 Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 1:1973 run changes in gross national product (GNP); and the decline in the labor force participation of prime-age black men. The paper then turns to changes in the ratios of income and employment of blacks to those of whites in more detailed categories, disaggregated by region, education, occupation, and age.' The differential importance of changes in incomes within given groups, shifts in employment across groups, and interactions in the overall advance of blacks are evaluated by "decomposition of change" calculations. The potential causes of the observed cyclical and secular developments are considered next in the context of the theory of discrimination initially developed by Becker.2 This theory directs attention to changes in discrimination that result from changes in its price or cost, which, in the period under study, stemmed from federal and related antidiscriminatory activities that penalized discriminators. Ensuing empirical analysis of the major postwar development, the relative improvement in black incomes and occupational attainment, focuses on the post-1964 role of governmental and related civil rights activity; on the occupational decisions of black workers in response to improved or existing economic opportunities; and on the characteristics of jobs and workers that led to different rates of advance in different labor markets. The Traditional Picture At the outset, it will be useful to review briefly the traditional picture of black-white differences i...

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