Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-s22k5 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-09T22:37:33.327Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Impact of World War II on the Demand for Female Workers in Manufacturing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 June 2018

Dina Shatnawi  and
Price Fishback
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Most studies of female workers in the 1940s focus on labor supply. We use the basics of supply and demand to measure the impact of WWII on the short- and medium-run demand for female workers in manufacturing. Demand rose for both salaried and production female workers during the war and then fell after the war. However, the post-war demands for both groups were substantially higher than before the war and higher than the levels that would have been reached had the demands followed a counterfactual growth path from the boom period in the 1920s.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 78 , Issue 2 , June 2018 , pp. 539 - 574
Copyright
Copyright © 2018 The Economic History Association 

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

Acemoglu, Daron, Autor, David H., and Lyle, David. “Women, War, and Wages: The Effect of Female Labor Supply on the Wage Structure at Mid-Century.” Journal of Political Economy 112, no. 3 (2004): 497–551.Google Scholar
Beney, Ada. Differentials in Industrial Wages and Hours in the United States: National Industrial Conference Board Studies: No. 238. New York: National Industrial Conference Board, 1938.Google Scholar
Campbell, D’Ann. Women at War with America: Private Lives in Patriotic Era. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984.Google Scholar
Carter, Susan B., Gartner, Scott Sigmund, Haines, Michael R., et al. Millennial Edition of the Historical Statistics of the United States. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006Google Scholar
Chafe, William. The American Woman: Her Changing Social, Economic, and Political Roles, 1920–1970. New York: Oxford University Press, 1974.Google Scholar
Chetty, Raj, Guren, Adam, Manoli, Day, et al. “Are Micro and Macro Labor Supply Elasticities Consistent? A Review of Evidence on Intensive and Extensive Margins.” American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 101 no. 3 (2011): 471–475.Google Scholar
Clive, Alan. “Women Workers in World War II: Michigan as a Test Case.” Labor History 20, no. 1 (1979): 44–72.Google Scholar
Erickson, Ethel. Women’s Employment in Aircraft Assembly Plants in 1942. Bulletin of the Women’s Bureau, No. 192-1. Washington, DC: GPO, 1942.Google Scholar
Fernandez, Raquel, Fogli, Alessandra, and Olivetti, Claudia. “Mothers and Sons: Preference Formation and Female Labor Force Dynamics.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 119, no. 4 (2004): 1249–1299.Google Scholar
Finegan, T. Aldrich, and Margo, Robert A.. “Work Relief and the Labor-Force Participation of Married Women in 1940.” Journal of Economic History 54, no. 1 (1994): 64–84.Google Scholar
Fishback, Price, and , Shatnawi, , Dina. “Demand for Women Workers in World War II.” Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2018. Available at https://doi.org/10.3886/E102281V1.Google Scholar
Freeman, Richard. “Employment and Wage Adjustment Models in U.S. Manufacturing, 1950–1976.” Economic Forum 11 (1980): 1–27.Google Scholar
Goldin, Claudia. Understanding the Gender Wage Gap: An Economic History of American Women. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.Google Scholar
Goldin, Claudia. “The Role of WWII in the Rise of Women’s Employment.” American Economic Review 81, no. 4 (1991): 741–756.Google Scholar
Goldin, Claudia, and Katz, Lawrence. The Race between Education and Technology. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008.Google Scholar
Goldin, Claudia, and Olivetti, Claudia. “Shocking Labor Supply: A Reassessment of the Role of World War II on US Women’s Labor Supply.” American Economic Review: Papers and Proceedings 103 (2013): 257–262.Google Scholar
Gregory, Chester. 1974. Women in Defense Work During World War II: An Analysis of the Labor Problem and Women’s Rights. Jericho, NY: Exposition Press.Google Scholar
Hamermesh, Daniel S. Labor Demand. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993.Google Scholar
Higgs, Robert. “Wartime Prosperity? A Reassessment of the U.S. Economy in the 1940s.” Journal of Economic History 52, no. 3 (1991): 41–60.Google Scholar
Higgs, Robert. “From Central Planning to the Market: The American Transition, 1945–1947.” Journal of Economic History 59, no. 3 (1999): 600–623.Google Scholar
Johnson, Ryan. “The Economic Progress of American Black Workers in a Period of Crisis and Change, 1916–1950.” Ph.D., diss., University of Arizona, 2002.Google Scholar
Keane, Michael, and Rogerson, Richard. “Micro and Macro Labor Supply Elasticities: A Reassessment of Conventional Wisdom.” Journal of Economic Literature 50, no. 2 (2012): 464–476.Google Scholar
National Industrial Conference Board (NICB). Wages in the United States, 1914–1929. New York: National Industrial Conference Board, 1930.Google Scholar
National Industrial Conference Board (NICB). Personnel Management Record. New York: National Industrial Conference Board Inc., monthly issues from 1936–1948.Google Scholar
Newman, Dorothy K. Employing Women in Shipyards. Bulletin of the Women’s Bureau, No. 192-6. Washington, DC: GPO, 1942.Google Scholar
Newman, Dorothy K., and Ziegler, Martha J.. Employment of Women in the Machine Tool Industry. Bulletin of the Women’s Bureau, No. 192-4. Washington, DC: GPO, 1942.Google Scholar
Oaxaca, Ronald. “Male-Female Wage Differentials in Urban Labor Markets.” International Economic Review 14, no. 3 (1973): 693–709.Google Scholar
Palmer, Gladys. Labor Mobility in Six Cities: A Report on the Survey of Patterns and Factors in Labor Mobility, 1940–1950. New York: Social Science Research Council, 1954.Google Scholar
Pennsylvania Department of Internal Affairs. Bureau of Statistics. Annual Report of the Secretary of Internal Affairs of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania: Industrial Statistics. Various years from 1916 to 1950.Google Scholar
Pennsylvania Department of Internal Affairs. Bureau of Statistics. Report on Productive Industries and Miscellaneous Statistics of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Various years from 1916 to 1950.Google Scholar
Pennsylvania Department of Internal Affairs. Bureau of Statistics. Report on Productive Industries, Public Utilities and Miscellaneous Statistics of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Various years from 1916 to 1950.Google Scholar
Pennsylvania Department of Internal Affairs. Bureau of Statistics. Comparable Statistics for Manufacturing Industries in Pennsylvania: 1916-1962. Special Release No. S-14. June 1964.Google Scholar
Pidgeon, Mary Elizabeth. A Preview as to Women Workers in Transition from War to Peace. Data. Special Bulletin No. 18 of the Women’s Bureau (March). Washington, DC: GPO, 1944.Google Scholar
Pidgeon, Mary Elizabeth. Employment of Women in the Early Postwar Period with Background of PreWar and War Data. Women’s Bureau Bulletin No. 211. Washington, DC: GPO, 1946.Google Scholar
Ruggles, Steven, Genadek, Katie, Goeken, Ronald, et al. Integrated Public Use Microdata Series: Version 6.0 [dataset]. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 2015. https://doi.org/10.18128/D010.V7.0.Google Scholar
Shatnawi, Dina. “Women and Labor Market Segregation Across Occupations and Industries.” Ph.D. diss., University of Arizona, 2010.Google Scholar
Troy, Leo. Trade Union Membership, 1897–1962. New York: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1965.Google Scholar
U.S. Bureau of the Census. Census of Manufacturing, 1947, Volume III, Statistics by States. Washington, DC: GPO, 1950.Google Scholar
U.S. Bureau of the Census. United States Census of Manufactures, 1954, Volume I, Summary Statistics, 45–46. Washington, DC: GPO, 1957.Google Scholar
U.S. Bureau of the Census. Historical Statistics of the United States: From Colonial Times to 1970. Washington, DC: GPO, 1975.Google Scholar
U.S. Women’s Bureau. United States Department of Labor. Women’s Wartime Hours of Work: The Effect on their Factory Performance and Home Life Washington, DC: GPO, 1947.Google Scholar
U.S. Women’s Bureau. United States Department of Labor. Baltimore Women War Workers in the Postwar Period. Mimeo. Washington, DC, 1948.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Shatnawi and Fishback supplementary material

Online Appendix

Download Shatnawi and Fishback supplementary material(File)
File 783.9 KB