Black women and labor force participation: An analysis of sluggish growth rates

The labor force participation rate of black women has not increased as fast as that of white women in spite of the fact that black females have the characteristics economists have found most encourage participation. Also black women at all socioeconomic levels have more positive attitudes towards labor market activity. The explanation for the failure for their work rates to grow as fast as those of white women appears to be inadequate employment opportunities for black women from lower socioeconomic groups. Education in or of itself, however, is not the solution to the problem because education yields lower returns to black women with limited schooling than is true for comparable whites. Any strategy devised to solve these employment inequities must address the low relative demand for these workers.     

Unemployment levels of Black people in Natal census districts according to the 1985 census

The basic needs approach to development is based on the premise that all people are entitled to adequate consumption goods (nutrition, shelter, clothing) and state‐provided infrastructure (health care, education, potable water, sanitation and transport). Consumption needs are financed (in the absence of a well‐developed social welfare system) largely by income from employment. The black population in employment as a percentage of the economically active, in the 1985 census districts in Natal, black population in employment as a percentage of the economically active age cohort and the employed as a percentage of the total population were calculated in order to establish the census districts (and the urban and non urban sectors of these census districts) where employment levels are lowest. It is possible on the basis of this data to target employment creation at the census districts where it would be most beneficial.     

Black women and the job training partnership act

Available data show that JTPA has provided some economically disadvantaged black women with employment and training services. Many black women who had suffered employment setbacks or entry problems during the recession that ended in 1982 need assistance in gaining access to the labor market. This is particularly true of young black women. At the same time, it is not clear from available evidence whether single black women who are supporting families alone and who are considered the core group of impoverishment in the black community have been-or, under the present configuration, can be-served adequately by JTPA.     

Assessing black progress: employment,occupation, earnings,income, poverty

Farley discusses changes in employment, occupation, earnings, income, and poverty among US blacks. Among black men, there has been a persistent rise in unemployment since 1960. By the early 1980s, 1 black man out of 8 had dropped out of the labor force, compared to 1 in 20 white men. Some contend that many black men lack the skills to be employed or have personal habits and criminal records which make them unacceptable to employers. Others believe that the expansion of federal welfare programs offers attractive alternatives to men who have limited earnings potential. Still others stress that blacks are concentrated within cities, while the growth of employment is occurring in suburbs. Among those blacks over age 54, labor force participation has declined because of improved Social Security benefits, better private pensions, and the greater availability of Supplemental Security Income. The employment of young blacks compared to whites has deteriorated since 1960. For both races, there has been a steady rise in the employment of women. The recent increases, however, have been great for whites. By the early 1980s, white women caught up with black women in terms of employment. Unlike the indicators of employment itself, there is unambiguous evidence that the occupational distribution of employed blacks has been upgraded and is gradually becoming similar to that of whites. Findings from many studies show that blacks once earned much less than similar whites, but this racial difference has declined among men and has nearly disappeared among women. The proportion of blacks impoverished fell sharply in the 1960s, reaching a minimum of 30% in the early 1970s. Since the early 1970s, blacks have made few gains. The proportion impoverished actually increased and the ratio of black-to-white family income declined. The fact that the earnings of black males are no longer rising faster than those of whites and that there is no longer a migration from southern farms to cities plays a role, but changes in family structure are also important. At all dates, poverty rates have been high and income levels low in families headed by women. In 1984, for example, 52% of the black families with a woman as head of household were below the poverty line, compared to 15% of the black married-couple families. While similar trends are occurring in white families, there has been a sharper increase in the proportion of blacks living in these female-maintained families which have high poverty rates.     

Restless worlds of work,health and migration: domestic workers in Johannesburg

The lives of migrant women have generally received far less attention than those of their male counterparts. Similarly, male migrants have been the focus of research on the relationship between migration and HIV/AIDS. Little attention has been paid to the vulnerability of female migrants themselves to HIV infection and their access to health care and treatment. Domestic work is the second largest sector of employment for black women in South Africa, and the largest for black women in Johannesburg and, as this article shows, most of these workers are migrants. Based on a survey of 1100 domestic workers in Johannesburg, the article explores the lives of domestic workers, focusing on their experience as migrants, their working conditions, use of health-care services and knowledge of and possible vulnerability to HIV/AIDS.     

General health conditions and medical insurance issues concerning black women

In the last 30 years the health status of black women has improved. However, the likelihood of health problems from complications of pregnancy and childbirth or prolonged illness from combined effects of diabetes, hypertension, and obesity remains. The need for continuity of care for these conditions and the low economic status of black women suggest that current policy shifts away from emphasis on increased access to medical care will adversely affect the health status of black women. Policies to contain health-care costs should therefore be designed to assure appropriate access to needed care for black women and other low-income groups.     

The Plight of African American Women: Employed and Unemployed

Understanding employment for African American women through the lens of neoclassical economics may not be best to help understand their plight. Their pay and the available employment has not been equal to that of men and even more so, African American women have lower paying jobs compared to their white counterparts, despite their achievement of higher levels of education. This paper looks at unemployment rates across the nation and then centers the discussion on black women in the context of the disparities over the past three decades. It combines the types of employment and wages that they have endured in context to white women during the same period of time. It uses Geographical Information Systems to underscore the concentration of income and race and the types of employment in those areas. It then provides some policy recommendations for the future.     

Do black and white women hold different jobs in the same occupation? A critical analysis of the clerical and service sectors

Employing 1960 and 1981 census data at the three-digit level, the study finds that black and white women were employed at different jobs in the predominantly female clerical and service occupations in both 1960 and 1981. However, there appears to be a slight reduction in black female job dissimilarity with white females between 1960 and 1981 in both occupations. Moreover, while employment of black women, relative to white women, in 1960 was observed to be generally skewed toward the low-paying, low-status jobs in clerical and service occupations, there was little evidence of this trend by 1981. The present results, then, complement previous findings at the more aggregative two-digit level of black female occupational advancement since the mid-1960s.     

A note on black-white wage disparity

Conclusion The evidence in this article helps to explain the black-white earnings differential in 1970, six years after the passage of Fair Employment Legislation, in terms of traditional measures such as experience and education along with a public policy measure that has of late come under fire. And contrary to the notion that the gains from such government policy have not benefited the less fortunate workers but simply accrued only, or mainly, to upper- or middle-class blacks, the results presented here indicate that enforcement, such as it is, has had beneficial effects for black men and women in virtually all major occupational categories. When a distinction is made between the various major occupational categories, the importance of education and experience as factors that contribute toward explaining black-white earnings differentials is generally supported by this study. However, neither education nor experience shows a consistent explanatory power across occupational categories and especially across the sexes. For example, experience is more frequently found to be a significant factor for black men than it is for black women. Education, on the other hand, was found to have no statistically significant relationship with wage differentials in major blue-collar job categories for both men and women, thus lending some credence to the dual labor market thesis regarding returns to education. By far the factor we have found to be the most consistent with respect to its impact upon racial wage differentials for both men and women is the fair employment variable. Indeed, across major occupational groups the existence and enforcement of fair employment laws seems to have had, generally, a more significant effect on reducing racial wage differentials than each of the other independent variables.     

Comparable worth and its impact on black women

Comparable worth is a subset of affirmative action strategies that deal with all of the terms and conditions of employment including hiring, recruitment, promotion, transfer, and wages. This article describes the comparable worth strategy and its potential impact on black women, black men, and the black community. By viewing the representation of black women in municipal clerical jobs, the author concludes that black women will gain from comparable worth. Because black men are overrepresented in ℝdtypically female” jobs, it is further concluded that black males will gain from implementation of comparable worth. Finally, because comparable worth will examine the basis for pay scales, the author concludes that both gender and racial bias may be revealed when job evaluations are examined. This article also views limitations to the comparable worth strategy and distributional concerns of comparable worth.     

Introduction to Articles on Black Women and Work

Black women are one of the hardest working groups in the country. However, hard work is not always properly rewarded. The existence of wage inequities based on race has been shown to exist (Darity The Journal of Human Resources XVII: 72–91 1982), and black women have not been exempt from its implications. In addition, African American women still experience higher unemployment levels than their white female counterparts. In papers examining black women in the nursing profession, their income and earnings volatility, and inequities in their employment, Richard McGregory, Bradley Hardy, and Linda Loubert provide an overview of where black women stand in the U.S. labor market with respect to work and earnings. While these pieces show that African American women have made significant inroads into the American labor market there is still further to go.     

Trends in Job Quality for African-American Workers, 1979–2011

Economists expect that increases in education and work experience will increase workers’ productivity and translate into higher compensation. We use data from the March Current Population Survey (CPS) to show that over the past four decades, the “human capital” of the employed black workforce has increased enormously, yet the share of black workers in a “good job” --one that pays at least $19 per hour (in inflation-adjusted 2011 dollars), has employer-provided health insurance, and an employer-sponsored retirement plan-- has actually declined. The CPS data show that black women saw a modest increase in access to “good jobs,” but the share of black men in good jobs decreased. Despite improvements for black women, they were consistently less likely to be in a good job than black men in every year in our sample. Black workers at every age and education level were also less likely to be in a good job in 2011 than they were in 1979.     

Overpopulation and unemployment in Zimbabwe

The size of Zimbabwe's African population has grown dramatically over the past 50 years, with 5.7 children on average being born per woman. The following factors are responsible for the rapid population growth in Zimbabwe: the country's economic prosperity during the period of the Central African Federation from 1953 to 1963, and its successful food policy before and after independence; the success of the health system, also in both periods; and the fact that women have not been incorporated into the economy as wage-earners. A brief historical overview is presented, followed by sections on the food policy and health system, reasons for the persistence of large families, and the relationship between wage-earning by women and the birth rate. The author also describes some of the problems caused by overpopulation. Engaging more women in regular wage-earning employment is the key to controlling the birth rate in Zimbabwe. Current government policies encouraging female employment in government services and the economy in general, along with the expansion of contraceptive services, could influence female fertility over the long term.     

Employment and Earnings: A Case Study of Urban Detroit

This paper investigates the roles of manufacturing employment, neighborhood poverty, and family structure in determining wages among Detroit, MI workers, just prior to the current economic crisis. Employment in manufacturing has been crucial for blacks and whites: 39% of black and of white men in the Detroit metropolitan area worked in manufacturing in 2000. Regression analysis in this paper estimates employment in manufacturing raised wages 15.8% for all workers in the metropolitan area, 24.4% for blacks and 13.8% for whites. It finds a higher wage penalty (4.7%) for blacks in non-manufacturing industries than is found when manufacturing sector jobs are included (2.6%). Wage returns to education were greater in the non-manufacturing employment sector, especially for blacks. Residence in the poorest central city neighborhoods reduced wages significantly for white manufacturing and non-manufacturing workers. Its coefficient was insignificant for black workers. Gender and marital status effects on wages differed between blacks and whites in magnitude: White women suffered a larger penalty for their sex than black women (22.6 versus 9.6%) yet black men enjoyed a greater return to marriage than white men (27.5 versus 25.0%). Controlling for manufacturing reduced the gender wage gap and the returns to marriage for men. These findings suggest greater accessibility for women; and lower returns to marriage in non-manufacturing sectors. Among employed blacks access to manufacturing jobs has been their main source of decent wages. The adverse effects of the industry??s job loss in the 1980s and 1990s impacted all Detroit residents. Other high wage industries have employed relatively few blacks, have not paid them well; and have suffered job loss and slow growth over the period. Education could have raised wages for non-manufacturing workers, but not as much as access to manufacturing jobs. Today as in 2000, Detroit??s residents desperately need job creation or relocation to the central city; and job training and anti-discrimination policy enforcement throughout the metro-area. All of these would be necessary to offset job loss and reduce inequality and poverty in Detroit. The extent to which blacks will benefit from 2010?C11 improvements in manufacturing employment in Detroit depends upon whether private companies and the state provide equal access to the jobs and the training new technologies require.     

The Incredible Shrinking Black Woman: Implications of Health Policies

Black American women are shrinking in height at a faster rate than other groups, a phenomenon that has consequences for the physical health and economic well-being of black females. Relative to the cohort born from 1955 to 1974, the most recent cohort (1970–1986) of black American women and girls have lost more than half an inch (approximately 0.56) in height. Adult height is a measure of net nutrition acquired during childhood and adolescence and is correlated with a wide variety of economic and health outcomes. Simultaneously, the body mass index (BMI) among blacks has also increased at a faster rate than whites in both the periods of 1988–1994 (1.06 kg/m2) and 1999–2002. Black women and girls, in particular, experienced the greatest increase in BMI since the 1990s. Evidence that black American women are shrinking and BMI is growing highlights the need to examine the nutritional intake of black girls during childhood and adolescence; early nutritional deficiencies have persistent impact over their life course. In this policy brief, we consider several public health policy interventions that affect black girls’ nutritional intake across the life course, particularly during childhood and adolescence.     

Black women in employment and training programs

This article examines the past experience of women-with a focus on black women-in employment and training programs. In spite of the fact that women have been underrepresented in these programs and often steered toward training in “traditionally female” occupations, they exhibit higher postprogram earnings gains than males. Overall, however, the training provided has at best shifted women into low-wage clerical fields with average annual earnings barely above the poverty level. Therefore, these programs-taken alone-can not be expected to have a major impact on an important problem facing blacks: welfare dependency.     

The myth of the double-advantage: Black female managers

This article reports on interviews conducted with 25 middle- and senior-level black female managers in private-sector employment. Three hypotheses were examined: (1) the processes that sociologists and psychologists assume influence the nontraditional career choices of white women are not the same as those that influence black women; (2) contrary to popular belief, black women are not being promoted more rapidly than other, better qualified workers as a result of affirmative action; and (3) black female managers are likely to encounter the same limits to their mobility that anyone, regardless of race or gender, might encounter,and they are likely to encounter limits to their mobility on account of their race and sex. Each of these hypotheses received some support from this admittedly narrow database.     

A simultaneous probit model of crime and employment for black and white teenage males

This study examines the relationships between the employability and criminality of white and black male teenagers. A disequilibrium model of employment and crime is formulated and estimated as a simultaneous probit equation system. Our results show that black teenagers who are employed engage in fewer criminal activities. Thus, it appears that blacks view employment and crime as alternative income-generating activities. On the other hand, the criminal behavior of white male teenagers is unaffected by their employment status. The evidence that we provide indicates that whites tend to use employment as a cover for crime or to moonlight in crime. The differences in the behaviors of whites and blacks can be explained, in part, by different legitimate opportunity structures for whites and blacks. One of the more important policy implications is that job opportunities targeted to high risk, black teenage populations will have the additional beneficial effect of reducing crime rates.     

Co-Morbidity and Other Complexities Affecting Black Women’s Health

This paper presents some of the major health concerns that affect black women, and examines how various individual health problems co-exist and coincide to create complex health concerns for women. It posits the idea that to effectively address a Black woman’s health, her mental, emotional, social, economic and even spiritual health must be considered as well as her physical condition. The paper focuses largely on the information from individual health-related research presentations at “The Invisible Woman” conference held at Bennett College in March 18–19, 2011 in Greensboro, North Carolina. At this event, scholars presented new research on HIV, obesity and mental health—three areas of critical concern for African–American women—examining ways in which these conditions affect Black women. The paper also addresses the role of health care access and policy in addressing these and other health concerns among women and within the black community. The review of the literature highlights the importance of examining health—perhaps especially Black women’s health—from social, cultural, behavioral, environmental and economic perspectives. It also points out the continued need for research that includes women and people of color.