According to data from 67% of a sample of 800 employers in Atlanta, Boston, Detroit, and Los Angeles, skill demands are associated with lower employment of blacks and higher employment of women. Most skill requirements had significant effects on hourly wages, accounting for some of the wage differences between black and white men. (SK)

Data from black and white women ages 34-44 (1968-88) showed that differences in characteristics did not explain occupational segregation by race nor the racial wage gap. During the 1980s, the gap was influenced by widening differences in access to occupations and an increase in returns to education. (SK)

Data on women in labor unions in 1988 reveal the following facts: (1) women are becoming an increasingly important part of membership in organized labor, as the total number of workers in unions declines; (2) in 1988, nearly 6 million of the 47.5 million employed women in the United States, or about 13 percent, were members of unions; (3) since…

A recent national survey suggests that women and Blacks receive less on-the-job training and training opportunities in their jobs than White males. This is especially true of young Black men. The factor of low wage does not seem to play a large part in this discrepancy. (CT)

Women have made slow, steady progress in the labor market since 1979, but the wage gap has not narrowed significantly. This briefing paper updates a September 1987 paper based on "Male-Female Differences in Work Experience, Occupations, and Earnings: 1984" (Current Population Reports, Household Economic Studies, Series P-70, No. 10, issued in…

A study used data from the 1998 Current Population Survey to document job growth in the public and private sectors and examine the quality of jobs in terms of wages and benefits. Findings indicated public sector employment declined for both women and men during the period from 1979-98 with a somewhat sharper decline among men. In 1998, median…

Discusses ways to close the gap between the courts' approach to applying Federal law to sex-based and race-based wage discrimination and the law's potential to change wage inequities. Discusses the Equal Pay Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Explores ways the court applies these laws. (JS)

This data analysis concludes that vocational education will increase a high school graduate's earnings, that benefits of training for women and immigrants should be considered in policy planning, and that black males do not financially benefit as much as others from vocational education. (CT)

Patterns of employment in U.S. industry today were studied in order to explore factors behind the low income and lagging occupational status of black women workers. The data collected for this group were contrasted with similar data for white women workers. The study found (1) substantial underrepresention in hiring black women at all income…

The status of minority women dentists is reviewed, and initiatives to improve it are noted. Issues and challenges for African-American female dentists are outlined, including negative racial/gender stereotypes, lack of advancement opportunities, difficulties in starting practices and securing professional and social support systems, lack of…

In trying to determine race and sex differences in earnings, some chapters in this volume examine the hypothesis that earnings differences are caused by skill differences. Findings indicate that skill differences cannot account for much of the earnings differences. Education levels required by various jobs are analyzed and compared to the actual…

These four fact sheets address a number of issues relating to women in the work force. The first, "An Overview of Women in the Work Force," offers a look at the numbers of women in the labor force, the occupational categories represented by women workers, women in professional and nonprofessional occupations, and women in nontraditional…

After remaining virtually unchanged from 1995 through the 1970s, the wage gap between women and men began to decline in the 1980s. By the early 1990s, the ratio of the annual earnings of women employed full time year-round to the annual earnings of their male counterparts reached 72.0%. That ratio decreased slightly (to 71.4%) in 1995. The wage…

The major explanations for the narrowing in wage differentials between blacks and whites can be placed under four general categories: (1) more recent black cohorts begin their job experiences with larger initial stocks of human capital than previous cohorts; (2) the rural South to urban North migration has partly been superceded by Southern blacks…

From 1978-79 incidence of long hours among full-time wage and salary workers dropped for the first time since the 1974-75 recession. Of those who worked long hours, about 43% received premium pay (time and one-half the regular wage for hours worked in excess of forty per week). Employers used overtime hours to cope with disequilibrium phenomena…