On Race and U.S. Labor Force Growth

Quincy Stewart, Indiana University

Over the last half century we observed a rapid increase in the size of the U.S. labor force. In an earlier paper, we showed that this increase was largely associated with historical population growth. However, a sizeable portion of this growth is directly related to increases in female labor force participation since 1950. This trend in increasing female participation eclipsed the decreases in male participation and substantially augmented the U.S. labor force over the last 50 years. In this paper, we extend our earlier analysis to racial differentials in labor force growth from 1960 to 2000. We decompose the difference between four racial groups’ labor force growth rates since 1960 to assess the role of social and demographic changes in alleviating and/or maintaining racial differentials in labor force growth. The end product is a better understanding of the dynamics of race in the labor force and racial well-being since 1960.