During much of U.S. history, black women had higher
employment rates than white women. But by the late 20th century,
women in more privileged racial-ethnic, national origin, and education
groups are more likely to work for pay. We compare the employment
of white women to blacks and three groups of Latinas—Mexicans,
Cubans, and Puerto Ricans—and explain racial-ethnic group
differences. White women work for pay more weeks per year than
Latinas or black women. In all groups education encourages, and
children reduce, employment, but having a husband does not reduce
employment—and even husbands’ earnings have little
effect. In explaining the lower employment rates of Latinas relative
to white women, the authors found that the higher fertility of
Mexican women and the large number of immigrants among Mexican
and Cuban women reduce their employment. The higher education
of white women explains large shares of the employment gap with
each group of women of color because, in today’s labor market,
education strongly predicts employment.
Paula England, Sociology and
Institute for Policy Research, Northwestern University Carmen Garcia, Institutional Research, Seminole
Community College Mary Richardson, Doctoral Student, Sociology,
Northwestern University
Click on
the working paper title at the top of this
page to download a free pdf of the paper.*
If You Need to Order a Hard Copy: Hard copies
of IPR working papers cost $5.00 each (international orders are $10 each). We only accept checks drawn on U.S. bank and payable in U.S. funds. Checks or money orders should be made
payable to Northwestern University and sent to the following address:
Publications Department - WP Orders
Institute for Policy Research
2040 Sheridan Rd., Evanston, IL 60208-4100.
For information, call 847-491-8712 or email ipr@northwestern.edu.
Please note that we do not accept credit cards.
*Adobe Acrobat Reader 5.0 (or higher) is needed to read the Acrobat pdf.
If you need to install Acrobat Reader, click the button below. Once the file
has downloaded onto your desktop, run it to install the reader on your hard
drive.
