EH.Net Abstracts in Economic History

                EHS Abstract Submission
                    (c) 1996 EH.Net
-----------------------------------------------------------
              Name:  William A. Sundstrom
               Email:  wsundstrom at mailer.scu.edu
         Institution:  Santa Clara University

         Co-author:  None

             Title:  Explaining the Unemployment Gap: 
                      Race and Region in the Employment Status
                      of Men, 1940

  Internet Address
of abstracted work:  Not available on the Internet

           By mail:
                     William A. Sundstrom
                     Department of Economics
                     Santa Clara University
                     Santa Clara, CA  95053

          Language:  English

          Abstract:
   The substantial and persistent gap between the unemployment
rates of African-Americans and whites first emerged in national
data during the 1940s and 1950s.  Disaggregation reveals that the
gap already existed in urban areas before 1940.  Using
individual-level data on male workers from the 1940 Census, the
author analyzes the causes of the unemployment gap.  Racial
differences in measured human capital and other characteristics
can explain all of the racial gap in the South but less than half
the gap in the North.  Potential explanations for this
paradoxical result are proposed and evaluated.

      Bibliography:  William A. Sundstrom, "Explaining the
Unemployment Gap: Race and Region in the Employment Status of
Men, 1940," working paper, Santa Clara University,
August 1996 (forthcoming, Industrial and Labor Relations
Review)

                  Subject:  T
 Geographical Area:  7
      Country/Region:  USA
            Time Period:  8