Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-02T21:04:32.836Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Role of Gender in Biased Technical Change: U.S. Manufacturing, 1850–1919

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Elizabeth Field-Hendrey
Elizabeth Field-Hendrey
Affiliation:
Associate Professor, Department of Economics, Queens College and Graduate Center, CUNY, 65-30 Kissena Boulevard, Flushing, NY 11367. E-mail: [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Differential treatment of men and women in nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century labor markets casts doubt on the common practice of adding male and female labor to create a single “labor” variable in the production function. This article shows that men and women must be disaggregated in the production function, and investigates the effects of inappropriate aggregation on the debate over the Habakkuk-Rothbarth labor scarcity hypothesis. With disaggregation, a female-using bias and an overall labor-using bias is found for the period 1850 through 1919. Technical change was male-neutral through 1900 and male-using thereafter.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 58 , Issue 4 , December 1998 , pp. 1090 - 1109
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Bateman, Fred, and Thomas, Weiss. A Deplorable Scarcity. The Failure of Industrialization in the Slave Economy. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1981.Google Scholar
Berndt, Ernst, and Christensen, Laurits. “The Internal Structure of Functional Relationships: Separability, Substitutability, and Aggregation.” Review of Economic Studies 40, no. 123 (1973): 403–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berndt, Ernst, and Christensen, Laurits. “Testing for the Existence of a Consistent Aggregate Index of Labor Inputs.” American Economic Review 64, no. 3 (1974): 391–404.Google Scholar
Bertaux, Nancy. “The Roots of Today's ‘Women's Jobs’ and ‘Men's Jobs’: Using the Index of Dissimilarity to Measure Occupational Segregation.” Explorations in Economic History 28, no. 4 (1991): pp. 433–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Binswanger, Hans. “The Measurement of Technical Change Biases with Many Factors of Production.” American Economic Review 64, no. 6 (1974), pp. 964–74.Google Scholar
Blackorby, Charles, Primont, Daniel, and Russell, R. R.. Duality, Separability, and Functional Structure: Theory and Economic Applications. New York: North Holland Publishing Co., 1978.Google Scholar
Cain, Louis, and Paterson, Donald. “Factor Biases and Technical Changes in Manufacturing: The American System, 1850–1919.” this JOURNAL 41, no. 2 (1981): 347–60.Google Scholar
Cain, Louis, and Paterson, Donald. “Biased Technical Change, Scale and Factor Substitution in American Manufacturing, 1850–1919.” this JOURNAL 46, no. 1 (1986): 153–64.Google Scholar
David, Paul. Technical Choice, Innovation, and Economic Growth. London: Cambridge University Press, 1975.Google Scholar
Denny, Michael, and Melvyn, Fuss. “The Use of Approximation Analysis to Test for Separability and the Existence of Consistent Aggregates.” American Economic Review 67, no. 3 (1977): 404–15.Google Scholar
Field, Alexander James. “Sectoral Shift in Antebellum Massachusetts: A Reconsideration.” Explorations in Economic History 15, no. 2 (1978): 146–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fuss, Denny, McFadden, Daniel, and Yair, Mundlak. “A Survey of Functional Forms in the Analysis of Production.” In Production Economics: A Dual Approach to Theory and Applications, Vol. 1, edited by Fuss, Melvyn and McFadden, Daniel, 219–68. New York: North Holland Publishing Co., 1978.Google Scholar
Gallant, A. R.Nonlinear Statistical Models. New York: Wiley, 1987.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldin, Claudia. Understanding the Gender Gap: An Economic History of American Women. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.Google Scholar
Goldin, Claudia, and Sokoloff, Kenneth. “Women, Children and Industrialization: Evidence from the Manufacturing Censuses.” this JOURNAL 42, no. 4 (1982): 741–74.Google Scholar
Goldin, Claudia, and Sokoloff, Kenneth. “The Relative Productivity Hypothesis of Industrialization: The American Case 1820 to 1850.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 99, no. 3 (1984): 461–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hamermesh, Daniel, and Grant, James. “Econometric Studies of Labor-Labor Substitution and Their Implications for Policy.” Journal of Human Resources 14, no. 4 (1979): 518–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Habakkuk, H. J.American and British Technology in the Nineteenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962.Google Scholar
James, John. “Some Evidence on Relative Labor Scarcity in 19th-Century Manufacturing.” Explorations in Economic History 18, no. 4 (1981): 376–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
James, John. “Structural Changes in American Manufacturing, 1850–1890.” this JOURNAL 43, no. 2 (1983): 433–60.Google Scholar
Nickless, Pamela. “Productivity in the New England Cotton Textile Industry.” this JOURNAL 39, no. 4 (1979): 889–910.Google Scholar
Quandt, R. E. “The Estimation of the Parameters of a Linear Regression System Obeying Two Separate Regimes.” Journal of the American Statistical Association 53, no. 284 (1958): 873–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rothbarth, Erwin. “Causes of the Superior Efficiency of the U.S.A. Industry as Compared with British Industry.” Economic Journal 56, no. 223 (1946): 383–90.Google Scholar
Kerry, Smith V.. “The Ames-Rosenberg Hypothesis and the Role of Natural Resources in the Production Technology.” Explorations in Economic History 15, no. 3 (1978): 257–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woolf, Arthur. “Electricity, Productivity, and Labor Saving: American Manufacturing, 1900–1929.” Explorations in Economic History 21, no. 2 (1984): 176–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar