TY  - JOUR
AU  - Goldin,Claudia D.
TI  - The Work and Wages of Single Women: 1870 to 1920
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 375
PY  - 1979
Y2  - July 1979
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w0375
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w0375.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Claudia Goldin
National Bureau of Economic Research
1050 Massachusetts Ave.
Cambridge, MA 02138
Tel: 617/613-1200
Fax: 617/613-1245
E-Mail: cgoldin@harvard.edu
AB  - Single women in the U.S. dominated the female labor force from 1870 to 1920. Data on the home life and working conditions of women in 1888 and 1907 enable the estimation of earnings functions. Work in the manufacturing sector for these women was task oriented and payment was frequently by the piece. Earnings rose steeply with experience and peaked early; learning was mainly on-the-job. Sex segregation of employment is seen as a partial product of the method of payment, and the early termination of human capital investment was a function of the life-cycle labor force participation of these women, although the role of the family is also critical.
ER  -