ECONOMIC

egions outside the South, within educational levels, black women earn morethan white women. The differential between whites and blacks in quality ofschooling, family background, and discrimination can be assumed to be similarfor women and men. Black women have a much greater life-cycle attachmentto the labor force, however, than white women do, although thisdifferential is largely confined to married women. For example, in 1972among women 35 to 44 years of age, with 4 years of high school or more,71 percent of the black women were in the labor force, compared to 53percent of the white women.The greater tendency of black married women to work, compared towhite married women, may be due in part to the relatively lower earningsof their husbands. Partly because of the relatively high earnings and workparticipation of black wives, the ratio of annual income of black husbandwifefamilies to that of white husband-wife families is higher than the ratioof black men's to white men's income. For families headed by males 35 to 44years old the ratio in 1969 was 75 percent, compared to 56 percent for malesalone (Tables 39 and 41).TABLE 41.—Median income of Negro h'isband-wife families as percent of white husband-wifefamilies, by region and age of husband, 1959, 1969, and 1972[Percentl1972Age of husband 1959 1969TotalSouthNorthandWestiAll families.Under 35 years35-44 years45-54 years55-64 years65 years and over..72 86937879i Includes Northeast and North-central.Source: Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census.Trends in the Earnings DifferentialMuch has been made of the rather puzzling observation that the ratioof earnings of all women to those of all men has declined during the past20 years. This observation refers to annual earnings, or the earnings offull-time, year-round workers who are not necessarily representative of thetotal. But average hours and weeks worked during the year fell for womenrelative to men from 1949 to 1969. If annual wages and salaries are dividedby total hours worked during the year, the result is a much modified declinein the hourly wage of women relative to the hourly wage of men (Table42).An additional factor which would produce a relative decline in women'searnings is the relative decline in their general educational level and theirlabor market experience during the period. In 1950, women in the laborforce had on the average more schooling than men did; but this advantage157527-867 O - 74 - 11