Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/262692 
Year of Publication: 
2019
Series/Report no.: 
Working Paper No. 290
Publisher: 
University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State, Chicago, IL
Abstract: 
During the 1910's, twelve states passed and implemented the first minimum-wage laws in the history of the United States. These laws were applying to specific industries and only to female employees. This paper studies the employment impact of these gender-specific minimum-wage laws, using full count Census data from 1880 to 1930. We apply a triple-difference strategy exploiting variation across states, industries, and time, to both the full sample of U.S. counties and to the restricted group of contiguous county pairs. We estimate separate models for male and female adults, and find that these laws led to a decrease in female employment and an increase in the employment of adult men. Guided by a simple labor demand setting, we estimate the average elasticity of substitution between male and female labor, and show that the two inputs were, on average, gross substitutes. We provide suggestive evidence of a long-run impact of gender-specific minimum-wage laws on female labor force participation, after the Fair Labor Standards Act.
Subjects: 
Minimum wage
labor demand
gender gap
JEL: 
J16
J23
J31
N3
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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