Explaining Black-White Wage Convergence, 1940–1950

Abstract

During the 1940s, racial differences in wages narrowed at an unusually rapid pace. Using a decomposition technique different from that of previous studies, the author shows that wage compression between and within groups—the so-called “Great Compression”—was a major factor behind racial wage convergence in the 1940s. In addition to wage compression, occupational shifts, internal migration, and diminishing racial differences in schooling helped to narrow the black-white wage gap between 1940 and 1950.