Skip to main content

Advertisement

Log in

The Plight of African American Women: Employed and Unemployed

  • Published:
The Review of Black Political Economy

Abstract

Understanding employment for African American women through the lens of neoclassical economics may not be best to help understand their plight. Their pay and the available employment has not been equal to that of men and even more so, African American women have lower paying jobs compared to their white counterparts, despite their achievement of higher levels of education. This paper looks at unemployment rates across the nation and then centers the discussion on black women in the context of the disparities over the past three decades. It combines the types of employment and wages that they have endured in context to white women during the same period of time. It uses Geographical Information Systems to underscore the concentration of income and race and the types of employment in those areas. It then provides some policy recommendations for the future.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Baltimore is known by the names of its distinctive neighborhoods and not its census tracts, therefore data is presented by those neighborhoods.

References

  • Alliance for Excellent Education. Education and the economy: boosting the nation’s economy by improving high school graduation rates. 2011.

    Google Scholar 

  • Darity WA, Mason PL. Evidence on discrimination in employment: codes of color, codes of gender. J Econ Perspect. 1998;12(2):63–90.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Darity Jr WA, Myers Jr SL, Chung C. Racial earnings disparities and family structure. South Econ J. 1998;65(1):20–41.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Equal Pay Commission. Report of the Equal Pay Commission, Department of Labor. State of Maryland; 2006

  • Mason PL, Austin A. The low wages of black immigrants: wage penalties for U.S.—born and foreign-born black workers, 298. Washington DC: Economic Policy Institute; 2011.

    Google Scholar 

  • McLendon L, Jones D, Rosin M. The Return on Investment (ROI) from Adult Education and Training, McGraw-Hill Research Foundation; 2011.

  • National Bureau of Economic Research. US Business Cycle Expansions and Contractions, NBER’s Business Cycle Dating Committee. NBER; 2010.

  • Newsome YD, Nii-AmooDoDoo F. Reversal of fortune: explaining the decline in black women’s earnings. Gend Soc. 2002;16(4):442–64.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pettit B, Ewert S. Employment gains and wage declines: the erosion of black women’s relative wages since 1980. Demography. 2009;46(3):469–92.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • US Congress Joint Economic Commission. Women and the Economy 2010: 25 Years of Progress But Challenges Remain, U.S. Congress; 2010.

  • US Department of Commerce. “Employment.” Women in America: Indicators of Social and Economic Well-Being, White House Council on Women and Girls. United States Government; 2011.

  • US Department of Labor. Employment Status of Women and Men in 2008, Women’s Bureau of Labor Statistics; 2008.

  • US Department of Labor. Highlight of Women’s Earnings in 2000, Bureau of Labor Statistics. 962. United States Government; 2001.

  • US Department of Labor. Women at Work, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. United States Government; 2011.

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Linda Loubert.

About this article

Cite this article

Loubert, L. The Plight of African American Women: Employed and Unemployed. Rev Black Polit Econ 39, 373–380 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12114-012-9140-8

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12114-012-9140-8

Keywords

Navigation