Hostname: page-component-5c6d5d7d68-txr5j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-08-23T07:04:35.219Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Gender Differences in Labor Turnover and the Development of Internal Labor Markets in the United States during the 1920s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 February 2015

Laura J. Owen
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Exploring the relationship between gender differences in labor turnover—which have been linked to male-female wage differentials—and the early twentieth-century development of internal labor markets, this case study suggests that observed gender differences in labor turnover in the twentieth century can be attributed, at least in part, to the specific employment policy decisions of firms. These policies, and the internal labor markets they helped create, directly addressed some of the causes of male turnover but did little to confront the sources (often non-market) of female turnover. The results of this analysis call into question the assumption that the higher rate of female turnover is exogenously determined.

Type
Articles
Information
Enterprise & Society , Volume 2 , Issue 1 , March 2001 , pp. 41 - 71
Copyright
Copyright © Enterprise and Society 2000

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bibliography of Works Cited

Books

Beney, M.Ada. Wages, Hours, and Employment in the United States, 1914–1936. New York, 1936.Google Scholar
Brandes, Stuart D. American Welfare Capitalism, 1880–1940. Chicago, 1976.Google Scholar
Edwards, Richard. Contested Terrain: The Transformation of the Workplace in the Twentieth Century. New York, 1979.Google Scholar
Goldin, Claudia. Understanding the Gender Gap: An Economic History of American Women. New York, 1990.Google Scholar
Gordon, David, Richard, Edwards, and Michael Reich, . Segmented Work, Divided Workers: The Historical Transformation of Labor in the United States. New York, 1982.Google Scholar
Hareven, Tamara. Family Time and Industrial Time. New York, 1982.Google Scholar
Jacoby, Sanford M. Employing Bureaucracy: Managers, Unions, and theTransformation of Work in American Industry, 1900–1945. New York, 1985.Google Scholar
Montgomery, David. Workers' Control in America. New York, 1979.Google Scholar
Nelson, Daniel. Managers and Workers: Origins of the New Factory System in the United States, 1880–1920. Madison, Wisc., 1975.Google Scholar
Ozanne, Robert. A Century of Labor-Management Relations at McCormick and International Harvester. Madison, Wisc., 1967.Google Scholar
Reynolds, Lloyd G. The Structure of Labor Markets. Westport, Conn., 1951.Google Scholar
Shlakman, Vera. Economic History of a Factory Town: A Study of Chicopee, Massachusetts. Northampton, Mass., 1935.Google Scholar
Slichter, Sumner. The Turnover of Factory Labor. New York, 1921.Google Scholar
Alexander, Magnus W. “Waste in Hiring and Discharging Men.” Iron Age 94 (Oct. 1914): 1032–33.Google Scholar
Barnes, William F., and Jones, Ethel B.. “Differences in Male and Female Quitting.” Journal of Human Resources 9 (Fall 1974): 439–51.Google Scholar
Berridge, William A. “Labor Turnover in American Factories.” Monthly Labor Review 29 (July 1929): 62–65.Google Scholar
Berridge, William A. “Your Labor Turnover: Good or Bad?” Factory (Sept. 1926), 416–18.Google Scholar
Bezanson, Anne, et al. “Four Years of Labor Mobility: A Study of Labor Turnover in a Group of Selected Plants in Philadelphia, 1921–1924.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 119 (May 1925): S1–S146.Google Scholar
Blau, Francine D., and Kahn, Lawrence M.. “Race and Sex Differences in Quits byYoung Workers.” Industrial and Labor Relations Review 34 (July 1981): 563–77.Google Scholar
Brissenden, Paul F., and Frankel, Emil. “Mobility of Labor in American Industry.” Monthly Labor Review 10 (June 1920): 1342–62.Google Scholar
Carter, Susan B., and Savoca, Elizabeth. “Labor Mobilityand LengthyJobs in Nineteenth-Century America.” Journal of Economic History 50 (March 1990): 1–16.Google Scholar
Carter, Susan B. “Gender Differences in Learning and Earning in Nineteenth-Century America: The Role of Expected Job and Career Attachment.” Explorations in Economic History 28 (July 1991): 323–43.Google Scholar
Gronau, Reuben. “Sex-Related Wage Differentials and Women's Interrupted Labor Careers—The Chicken or the Egg.” Journal of Labor Economics 6 (July 1988): 277–301.Google Scholar
Jacoby, Sanford M. “Industrial Labor Mobility in Historical Perspective.” Industrial Relations 22 (Spring 1983): 215–28.Google Scholar
Lazonick, William H. “Technological Change and the Control of Work: The Development of Capital-Labour Relations in U.S. Mass Production Industries.” In Managerial Strategies and Industrial Relations, ed. Gospel, Howard F. and Littler, Craig R.. London, 1983, pp. 111–36.Google Scholar
Light, Audrey, and Ureta, Manuelita. “Gender Differences in Wages and Job Turnover among Continuously Employed Workers.” American Economic Review 80 (May 1990): 293–97.Google Scholar
Mincer, Jacob, and Polachek, Solomon. “FamilyInvestments in Human Capital: Earnings of Women.” Journal of Political Economy 82 (March-April 1974): S76–S108.Google Scholar
Owen, Laura J. “Worker Turnover in the 1920s: What Labor Supply Arguments Don't Tell Us.” Journal of Economic History 55 (Dec. 1995): 822–41.Google Scholar
Owen, Laura J. “Worker Turnover in the 1920s: The Role of Changing Employment Policies.” Industrial and Corporate Change 4 (1995): 499–530.Google Scholar
Parsons, Donald O. “Quit Rates over Time: A Search and Information Approach.” American Economic Review 63 (June 1973): 390–401.Google Scholar
Pesando, James E., Morley, Gunderson, and McLaren., John “Pension Benefits and Male-Female Wage Differentials.” Canadian Journal of Economics 24 (Aug. 1991): 536–50.Google Scholar
Rogers, Thomas W. “A Comparison of Labor Turnover among Men and Women.” Monthly Labor Review 28 (Jan. 1929): 39–41.Google Scholar
Rosenbloom, Joshua L. “The Challenges of Economic Maturity: New England, 1880–1940,” in Engines of Enterprise: The Economic History of New England, ed. Temin, Peter. Cambridge, Mass., 2000, pp. 153–200.Google Scholar
Ross, Arthur M. “Do We Have a New Industrial Feudalism?” American Economic Review 48 (Dec. 1958): 903–20.Google Scholar
Royalty, Anne Beeson. “Does Job Matching Differ by Sex?” Yale University Economic Growth Center, Discussion Paper no. 689. May 1993.Google Scholar
Sundstrom, William A. “Internal Labor Markets before World War I: On-the-Job Training and Employee Promotion.” Explorations in Economic History 25 (Oct. 1988): 424–45.Google Scholar
Viscusi, W. Kip. “Sex Differences in Worker Quitting.” Review of Economics and Statistics 62 (Aug. 1980): 388–98.Google Scholar
U.S. Bureau of the Census. Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970. Washington, D.C., 1975.Google Scholar
U.S. Bureau of the Census. Fourteenth Census of the United States Taken in the Year 1920. vol. 1, Population and Occupations. Washington, D.C., 1921.Google Scholar
U.S. Bureau of the Census. Fourteenth Census of the United States Taken in the Year 1920. vol. 8, Manufactures. Washington, D.C., 1923.Google Scholar
U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. “Health and Recreational Activities in Industrial Establishments, 1926.” Bulletin, no. 458. Washington, D.C., 1928.Google Scholar
U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. “Welfare Work for Employees in Industrial Establishments in the United States.” Bulletin, no. 250. Washington, D.C., 1919.Google Scholar
U.S. Department of Labor, Women's Bureau. “Lost Time and Labor Turnover in Cotton Mills.” Bulletin, no. 52. Washington, D.C., 1926.Google Scholar
Dwight Manufacturing Company Collection. Baker Library, Harvard UniversityGraduate School of Business Administration, Boston.Google Scholar
Fasce, Ferdinando. “Bureaucracy, Ethnicity, and Class: Italian Immigrants in an American Factory, 1915–1920.” Scovill Collection, Baker Library, Harvard University Graduate School of Business Administration. Undated MS.Google Scholar
Scovill Manufacturing Company Collection. Baker Library, Harvard UniversityGraduate School of Business Administration, Boston.Google Scholar
Suncook Mills Collection. Baker Library, Harvard University Graduate School of Business Administration, Boston.Google Scholar
Whatley, Warren C., and Sedo., Stan “Declining Turnover and Wages in the 1920s: New Evidence from CompanyPersonnel Records.” Paper presented at the Economic History Association Meetings. Baltimore, Md., Oct. 1999.Google Scholar