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Last Hired, First Fired? Unemployment and Urban Black Workers During the Great Depression

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

William A. Sundstrom
William A. Sundstrom
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of Economics, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA 95053.
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Abstract

Throughout the Great Depression, the unemployment rates of blacks exceeded those of whites in urban areas of both North and South. Among men, this difference was largely due to racial differences in occupational status, whereas among women, unemployment rates were dramatically higher for blacks even within specific occupations. The occupational pattern of the unemployment gap suggests that labor market discrimination played a role, especially in unskilled service jobs.

Type
Papers Presented at the Fifty-First Annual Meeting of the Economic History Association
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 52 , Issue 2 , June 1992 , pp. 415 - 429
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1992

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