ECONOMIC

TABLE 42.—Relation of wage and salary earnings and of total money earnings of women to thoseof men, 1949, 1959, and 1969Type of earningsEarnings of women as percent of earningsof men1949 1959 1969Mean wage and salary earnings: 1AnnualHourlyHourly adjusted for education 2 .Mean total money earnings: iAnnualHourlyHourly adjusted for education 2 .4763634662621 Earnings for any year are for those in the experienced labor force the following year.2 Approximate adjustment based on differences in the educational distributions of men and women in the labor forcein 1950, 1960, and 1970.3 Not available.Source: Council of Economic Advisers.was eliminated by 1970. Since education has an effect on earnings—bothmen's and women's earnings increase with education—it is importantto take these changes into account. An approximate adjustment for educationallevel increases the differential in 1949 and 1959, because women inthe labor force then had more education than men. After the educationaladjustment, the differential shows little change from 1949 to 1969.What has not been accounted for is the experience differential betweenmen and women. As has been explained above, this difference seemsto be the most important factor causing a divergence in hourly earnings. Butsince the labor force participation of women, particularly married women,was increasing rapidly during the period, it is very likely that the constantflow of entrants into the labor force resulted in a decline in the averageexperience of women in the labor force during the 20 years.The foregoing suggests that if we could compare women and men witha given amount of experience and education the ratio of women's hourlyearnings to men's might well show an increase over the 20 years—a narrowingin the gap. This would, of course, be compatible with the fact thatwomen have dramatically increased their participation in the labor forceduring the past 20 years. The rapidly increasing opportunities offered themwould be one reason why they have done so.OCCUPATIONAL DIFFERENCESThe occupational distribution of blacks differs from that of whites. In1970, for example, 27 percent of employed white males and 9 percent ofemployed black males were managers or professionals, whereas 7 percent ofwhite males and 19 percent of black males were hired farm or nonfarmlaborers; and 18 percent of employed black females were domestic householdworkers, compared to only 2 percent of white females. There is also consid-158