The Impact of Female Work on Family Income Distribution in the United States: Black-White Differentials* (original) (raw)

1981, Review of Income and Wealth

Using data from the 1973 National Survey of Family Growth, the present study analyzes, for blacks and whites separately, the impact of female market activity on the inequality of the income distribution among households. The family life cycle is divided into three stages, according to the presence and age of children: (1) the interval between marriage and the birth of the first child, (2) the child-rearing interval, and (3) a final period which begins when all the children have reached school age. Using the coefficient of variation as an indicator of inequality, the empirical results show that in period 1, the contribution of white working wives has a large equalizing impact, while that of their black counterparts results in a slight increase in dispersion. In the child-rearing and post child-rearing stages, the labor supply of mothers decreases family income inequality by a small amount for both black and white households. A decomposition of the squared coefficient of variation of family income is presented to aid in the interpretation of these findings. *Support for this research was provided by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development under grant # H D 12037-02. We are indebted to an anonymous referee of this journal for many helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper, and to Rachel Willis for skilful research assistance. '~l t h o u~h the coefficient of variation is convenient, for the reasons indicated in the text, it is by no means an ideal measure of inequality. For a good discussion of the advantages and shortcomings of this and other measures of inequality, see Cowell (1977). 2~h e empirical analysis excludes from the samples corresponding to period 1 childless couples who reported plans not to have children in the future.