Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/232672 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 13920
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
In 1966, Southern hospitals were barred from participating in Medicare unless they discontinued their long-standing practice of racial segregation. Using data from five Deep South states and exploiting county-level variation in Medicare certification dates, we find that gaining access to an ostensibly integrated hospital had no effect on the Black-White infant mortality gap, although it may have discouraged small numbers of Black mothers from giving birth at home attended by a midwife. These results are consistent with descriptions of the federal hospital desegregation campaign as producing only cosmetic changes and illustrate the limits of anti-discrimination policies imposed upon reluctant actors.
Subjects: 
hospital desegregation
black infant mortality
Medicare
civil rights
JEL: 
I14
I18
N32
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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