ECONOMIC

Several factors can be mentioned to explain why black males still receivelower earnings than white males after adjustment for schooling, age, region,and marital status. Prior investments made in the child at home are importantin determining the extent to which a student benefits from schooling.Black youths are more likely to come from poorer homes where the parentshave less schooling, to have poorer diets, and to be less healthy. They arelikely to start school with fewer advantages and skills than the typical whiteyouth. Moreover, at least in the past, there was discrimination against blackyouths in public school expenditures. Later on, as adults, blacks have poorerhealth, and may have poorer information about better jobs. Some of the currentwage differences may thus be a consequence of past discrimination.Many factors, such as health and information about labor markets, are difficultto measure, however, and their actual effects on earnings differencesbetween blacks and whites have not been quantified. One cannot thenreliably measure the extent of the occupational and wage rate discriminationthat now exists, or the effect that current discrimination has on earnings.SEX DIFFERENTIALSIn 1972 the median annual earnings of women 14 years old and overwho did full-time, year-round work were about 58 percent of that of fulltime,year-round male workers. This low ratio cannot be taken as a measureof current market discrimination, however, since the average full-time workweekis shorter for women than for men, and their life time work experiencehas been vastly different.Specialization and Working WomenAlthough the pattern is changing rapidly, the traditional economic organizationof the family has been marked by a specialization of function:women tend to specialize in the work associated with child care and keepingup the home; men tend to specialize in labor market employment. In thepast, when it was typical for families to have more children than they nowdo, this specialization of function was undoubtedly an efficient arrangement.Whether it now reflects societal discrimination or efficiency is a matter forspeculation.In many families a lesser degree of specialization and a greater sharingof home and labor market activities have come to be the preferred formof family organization, and women's participation in the labor force hasincreased greatly. In 1950, 28 percent of married women 35 to 44 years ofage were in the labor force; in 1972 the proportion was 49 percent. However,most married men still work nearly continuously during their primeworking years; and the labor force participation rate of married men from25 to 55 years of age is over 95 percent.The work histories of individual women cannot be ascertained fromcurrent labor force rates; special surveys are needed to provide informa-154