Summary and Conclusions

Much of the empirical research on the relative economic status of women and blacks concentrates on how these groups fare relative to white males in the U.S. labor market. Many of these studies, however, have not examined explicitly whether the relative status of these groups varies across local labor markets or whether the relative status of these groups is systematically associated with economic attributes of a local labor market. This study investigates the effects that local labor market conditions have on the economic status of women and blacks relative to white men. Specifically, we investigate whether conventional estimates of wage and occupational discrimination vary across local labor markets and whether they are systematically related to changes in measurable attributes of those labor markets.