IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cwm/wpaper/136.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Civil Rights Act and the Earnings of Lower Income Hispanic Men

Author

Listed:
  • Harriet Orcutt Duleep

    (Thomas Jefferson Program in Public Policy, The College of William and Mary)

  • Mark C. Regets

    (National Science Foundation)

Abstract

This paper uses Social Security longitudinal earnings records matched to Current Population Survey data to examine changes in the relative earnings of Hispanic men during a period of dramatic change in public and private policies toward race and ethnicity characterized by, but not limited to, the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Our principle focus is to compare and contrast how lower income Hispanic and African-American men fared during the civil rights era relative to lower-income non- Hispanic whites. Although previous studies have analyzed black economic progress using annual data before and after the Civil Rights Act, this is the first study to do so for Hispanics. We follow a longitudinal sample of individuals who were in the labor market before and after the passage of the Civil Rights Act. Following the same individuals holds constant an array of unmeasured variables such as labor force selectivity and schooling quality that may correlate with the post-1964 period; our approach addresses concerns that the results are the product of changes in these variables. Of particular note—we uncover a significant acceleration following the Civil Rights Act in the relative earnings of low-income Hispanic men.

Suggested Citation

  • Harriet Orcutt Duleep & Mark C. Regets, 2013. "The Civil Rights Act and the Earnings of Lower Income Hispanic Men," Working Papers 136, Department of Economics, College of William and Mary.
    • Handle: RePEc:cwm:wpaper:136
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://economics.wm.edu/wp/cwm_wp136.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Donohue, John J, III & Heckman, James, 1991. "Continuous versus Episodic Change: The Impact of Civil Rights Policy on the Economic Status of Blacks," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 29(4), pages 1603-1643, December.
    2. Harriet Duleep & Daniel Dowhan, 2002. "Insights from longitudinal data on the earnings growth of U.S. foreign-born men," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 39(3), pages 485-506, August.
    3. Duleep, Harriet & Sanders, Seth G., 2012. "The Economic Status of Asian Americans Before and After the Civil Rights Act," IZA Discussion Papers 6639, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Leonard, Jonathan S, 1984. "The Impact of Affirmative Action on Employment," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 2(4), pages 439-463, October.
    5. Charles Brown, 1984. "Black-White Earnings Ratios Since the Civil Rights Act of 1964: The Importance of Labor Market Dropouts," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 99(1), pages 31-44.
    6. Reimers, Cordelia W, 1983. "Labor Market Discrimination against Hispanic and Black Men," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 65(4), pages 570-579, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Duleep, Harriet & Regets, Mark, 2012. "The Civil Rights Act and the Earnings of Lower Income Hispanic Men in the 1960's," IZA Discussion Papers 6638, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Neal, Derek A & Johnson, William R, 1996. "The Role of Premarket Factors in Black-White Wage Differences," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(5), pages 869-895, October.
    3. Prakash, Nishith, 2008. "Improving the Labor Market Outcomes of Minorities: The Role of Employment Quota," MPRA Paper 11010, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Duleep, Harriet & Sanders, Seth G., 2012. "The Economic Status of Asian Americans Before and After the Civil Rights Act," IZA Discussion Papers 6639, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Prakash, Nishith, 2020. "The Impact of Employment Quotas on the Economic Lives of Disadvantaged Minorities in India," IZA Discussion Papers 13847, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Harriet Orcutt Duleep & Seth Sanders, 2013. "The Economic Status of Asian Americans Before and After the Civil Rights Act," Working Papers 135, Department of Economics, College of William and Mary.
    7. Prakash, Nishith, 2020. "The impact of employment quotas on the economic lives of disadvantaged minorities in India," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 494-509.
    8. repec:eee:labchp:v:3:y:1999:i:pc:p:3143-3259 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Kenneth Y. Chay, 1998. "The Impact of Federal Civil Rights Policy on Black Economic Progress: Evidence from the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 51(4), pages 608-632, July.
    10. Lex Borghans & Bas Ter Weel & Bruce A. Weinberg, 2014. "People Skills and the Labor-Market Outcomes of Underrepresented Groups," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 67(2), pages 287-334, April.
    11. David Neumark & Wendy A. Stock, 2001. "The Effects of Race and Sex Discrimination Laws," NBER Working Papers 8215, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Eric D. Gould, 2021. "Torn Apart? The Impact of Manufacturing Employment Decline on Black and White Americans," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 103(4), pages 770-785, October.
    13. William A. Darity & Samuel L. Myers & Chanjin Chung, 1998. "Racial Earnings Disparities and Family Structure," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 65(1), pages 20-41, July.
    14. Borghans, Lex & ter Weel, Bas & Weinberg, Bruce A., 2005. "People People: Social Capital and the Labor-Market Outcomes of Underrepresented Groups," IZA Discussion Papers 1494, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    15. Ran Abramitzky & Leah Boustan, 2017. "Immigration in American Economic History," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 55(4), pages 1311-1345, December.
    16. Conrad Miller, 2017. "The Persistent Effect of Temporary Affirmative Action," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(3), pages 152-190, July.
    17. Roland G. Fryer, Jr. & Devah Pager & Jörg L. Spenkuch, 2013. "Racial Disparities in Job Finding and Offered Wages," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 56(3), pages 633-689.
    18. Patrick Bayer & Kerwin Kofi Charles, 2016. "Divergent Paths: Structural Change, Economic Rank, and the Evolution of Black-White Earnings Differences, 1940-2014," NBER Working Papers 22797, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Judith Fields & Edward N. Wolff, 1997. "Gender Wage Differentials, Affirmative Action, and Employment Growth on the Industry Level," Macroeconomics 9711005, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. William J. Collins & Michael Q. Moody, 2017. "Racial Differences in American Women's Labor Market Outcomes: A Long-Run View," NBER Working Papers 23397, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    21. Derek Neal & Armin Rick, 2014. "The Prison Boom and the Lack of Black Progress after Smith and Welch," NBER Working Papers 20283, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    anti-discrimination legislation; minority economic progress; Mexican Americans; Hispanic; low income; Civil Rights Act; longitudinal administrative records;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J48 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Particular Labor Markets; Public Policy
    • J71 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - Hiring and Firing
    • J78 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - Public Policy (including comparable worth)
    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J18 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Public Policy

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cwm:wpaper:136. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Daifeng He or Alfredo Pereira (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/decwmus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.