IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/2747.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Marriage Bars: Discrimination Against Married Women Workers, 1920's to 1950's

Author

Listed:
  • Claudia Goldin

Abstract

Modern personnel practices, social consensus, and the Depression acted in concert to delay the emergence of married women in the American economy through an institution known as the "marriage bar." Marriage bars were policies adopted by firms and local school boards, from about the early 1900's to 1950, to fire single women when they married and not to hire married women. I explore their determinants using firm-level data from 1931 and 1940 and find they are associated with promotion from within, tenure-based salaries, and other modern personnel practices. The marriage bar, which had at its height affected 751 of all local school boards and more than 50% of all office workers, was virtually abandoned in the 1950's when the cost of limiting labor supply greatly increased.

Suggested Citation

  • Claudia Goldin, 1988. "Marriage Bars: Discrimination Against Married Women Workers, 1920's to 1950's," NBER Working Papers 2747, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:2747
    Note: DAE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w2747.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lazear, Edward P & Rosen, Sherwin, 1981. "Rank-Order Tournaments as Optimum Labor Contracts," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(5), pages 841-864, October.
    2. Goldin, Claudia, 1989. "Life-Cycle Labor-Force Participation of Married Women: Historical Evidence and Implications," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 7(1), pages 20-47, January.
    3. Goldin, Claudia, 1984. "The historical evolution of female earnings functions and occupations," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 1-27, January.
    4. Bulow, Jeremy I & Summers, Lawrence H, 1986. "A Theory of Dual Labor Markets with Application to Industrial Policy,Discrimination, and Keynesian Unemployment," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 4(3), pages 376-414, July.
    5. Goldin, Claudia D., 1984. "The historical evolution of female earnings functions and occupations," Scholarly Articles 30703975, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    6. Lazear, Edward P, 1979. "Why Is There Mandatory Retirement?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(6), pages 1261-1284, December.
    7. Lazear, Edward P, 1981. "Agency, Earnings Profiles, Productivity, and Hours Restrictions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(4), pages 606-620, September.
    8. Jacob Mincer, 1962. "Labor Force Participation of Married Women: A Study of Labor Supply," NBER Chapters, in: Aspects of Labor Economics, pages 63-105, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Smith, James P & Ward, Michael P, 1985. "Time-Series Growth in the Female Labor Force," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 3(1), pages 59-90, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Heather Boushey, 2013. "The role of the government in work–family conflict in the US," Chapters, in: Deborah M. Figart & Tonia L. Warnecke (ed.), Handbook of Research on Gender and Economic Life, chapter 19, pages 307-322, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    2. Committee, Nobel Prize, 2023. "Scientific Background to the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2023," Nobel Prize in Economics documents 2023-2, Nobel Prize Committee.
    3. Nayoung Rim, 2021. "The Effect of Title IX on Gender Disparity in Graduate Education," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 40(2), pages 521-552, March.
    4. Nayoung Rim, 2017. "The Effect of Title IX on Gender Disparity in Graduate Education," Departmental Working Papers 58, United States Naval Academy Department of Economics.
    5. Juliana Jaramillo-Echeverri, 2023. "La transición de la fecundidad en Colombia: nueva evidencia regional," Cuadernos de Historia Económica 60, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
    6. Leonora Risse, 2022. "Career and Family: Women's Century‐Long Journey toward Equity," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 98(323), pages 411-415, December.
    7. Ma. Christina Epetia, 2024. "Claudia Goldin and the economics of women and work," Philippine Review of Economics, University of the Philippines School of Economics and Philippine Economic Society, vol. 61(1), pages 71-86, June.
    8. Ana María Iregui-Bohórquez & María Teresa Ramírez-Giraldo & Sara Isabel Caicedo-Silva, 2024. "Las mujeres en la banca central: El caso del Banco de la República de Colombia, 1923-2023," Cuadernos de Historia Económica 62, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
    9. Baum, Tom, 2012. "Working the skies: Changing representations of gendered work in the airline industry, 1930–2011," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 33(5), pages 1185-1194.
    10. Ana María Iregui-Bohórquez & Ligia Alba Melo-Becerra & María Teresa Ramírez-Giraldo & Ana María Tribín-Uribe, 2020. "The path to gender equality in Colombia: Are we there yet?," Borradores de Economia 1131, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
    11. Tito Boeri & Jan van Ours, 2013. "The Economics of Imperfect Labor Markets: Second Edition," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 10142.

    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. repec:eee:labchp:v:1:y:1986:i:c:p:103-204 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Joseph A. Ritter & Lowell J. Taylor, 1997. "Economic models of employee motivation," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, issue Sep, pages 3-21.
    3. repec:eee:labchp:v:3:y:1999:i:pb:p:2373-2437 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. André Zylberberg, 1994. "Effort et contrats : quelques enseignements concernant le marché du travail," Économie et Prévision, Programme National Persée, vol. 113(2), pages 1-20.
    5. Edward P. Lazear, 1995. "Personnel Economics," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262121883, April.
    6. Holger M. Mueller & Paige P. Ouimet & Elena Simintzi, 2015. "Wage Inequality and Firm Growth," NBER Working Papers 20876, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. C. Sofia Machado & Miguel Portela, 2011. "Age and opportunities for promotion," NIPE Working Papers 03/2011, NIPE - Universidade do Minho.
    8. Dagmar Brožová, 2016. "Forming the Modern Labour Market Economics: On the Role of Institutionalist Theories [Utváření moderní ekonomie trhů práce: neoklasické paradigma s institucionálními teoriemi]," Acta Oeconomica Pragensia, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2016(6), pages 56-68.
    9. Dohmen, Thomas J., 2004. "Performance, seniority, and wages: formal salary systems and individual earnings profiles," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(6), pages 741-763, December.
    10. Paul Hek & Daniel Vuuren, 2011. "Are older workers overpaid? A literature review," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 18(4), pages 436-460, August.
    11. Michael Waldman, 2012. "Theory and Evidence in Internal LaborMarkets [The Handbook of Organizational Economics]," Introductory Chapters,, Princeton University Press.
    12. repec:eee:labchp:v:2:y:1986:i:c:p:789-848 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. John G. Sessions & John D. Skåtun, 2017. "Performance-Related Pay, Efficiency Wages and the Shape of the Tenure-Earnings Profile," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 85(3), pages 295-319, June.
    14. Claudia Goldin, 2006. "The Quiet Revolution That Transformed Women's Employment, Education, and Family," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(2), pages 1-21, May.
    15. Edward P. Lazear, 1999. "Personnel Economics: Past Lessons and Future Directions," NBER Working Papers 6957, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Mueller, Holger & Simintzi, Elena & Ouimet, Paige, 2015. "Wage Inequality and Firm Growth," CEPR Discussion Papers 10365, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    17. Louis N. Christofides & Michael Hoy & Ling Yang, 2008. "The Determinants of University Participation in Canada (1977-2003)," University of Cyprus Working Papers in Economics 4-2009, University of Cyprus Department of Economics.
    18. Derek Neal & Sherwin Rosen, 1998. "Theories of the Distribution of Labor Earnings," NBER Working Papers 6378, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Eguchi, Kyota, 2004. "Minimum wages enhancing trainers’ incentives," ISER Working Paper Series 2004-18, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    20. repec:eee:labchp:v:3:y:1999:i:pb:p:2291-2372 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Polachek, Solomon W., 2008. "Earnings Over the Life Cycle: The Mincer Earnings Function and Its Applications," Foundations and Trends(R) in Microeconomics, now publishers, vol. 4(3), pages 165-272, April.
    22. Ourania Karakosta & Nikos Tsakiris, 2009. "Indirect Tax Reforms and Public Goods under Imperfect Competition," University of Cyprus Working Papers in Economics 5-2009, University of Cyprus Department of Economics.
    23. Edward P. Lazear & Paul Oyer, 2012. "Personnel Economics [The Handbook of Organizational Economics]," Introductory Chapters,, Princeton University Press.
    24. Macera, Rosario, 2018. "Intertemporal incentives under loss aversion," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 178(C), pages 551-594.

    More about this item

    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:nbr:nberwo:2747. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.