Black Female Earnings and Income Volatility

I provide new evidence on earnings and income volatility among Black women in the United States over the past four decades by using matched data from the March Current Population Survey. I use a measure of total volatility that encompasses both permanent and transitory instability, and that admits l...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Review of Black political economy 2012-12, Vol.39 (4), p.465-475
Main Author: Hardy, Bradley L.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
African Americans
Black people
Economic Policy
Economic statistics
Economic theory
Economics
Economics and Finance
Education
Education Work Relationship
Employment
Ethnic Groups
Females
Growth rate
Income
Labor economics
Labor Force
Labor market
Labour force
Labour market
Marital Status
Political Science
Racial Differences
Secondary schools
Sociology
Studies
Trends
U.S.A
United States of America
Volatility
White people
Women
Women's employment
Work
Working Women
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:I provide new evidence on earnings and income volatility among Black women in the United States over the past four decades by using matched data from the March Current Population Survey. I use a measure of total volatility that encompasses both permanent and transitory instability, and that admits labor-force transitions. My results show that, for Black women, earnings volatility fell over the entire period and income volatility rose after the mid 1980s. I also find that changes over time in labor force transitions into and out of work along with an increasing share of Black women continuously employed coincide with shifts in volatility levels and trends. Among Black women, differences in volatility levels emerge across education groups and marital status, though the trends typically remain consistent both across and within racial groups.
ISSN:0034-6446
1936-4814
DOI:10.1007/s12114-011-9105-3