Comments on Wright

Gavin Wright (1991), “Understanding the Gender Gap: A Review Article,” Journal of Economic Literature : 1153-63 http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/Teaching_Folder/Econ_210c_spring_2002/Readings/Wright_Goldin.pdf

Comments

[Breana Pennington]

Gavin Wright gives a glowing analysis of Claudia Goldin’s book “Understanding the Gender Gap.” The transitions in the types of discrimination from the 19th c. to the 20th c. are very interesting. I did not realize before this article that there actually were two distinct periods that saw a narrowing of the gap between women’s and men’s pay, with one such period prevailing during the industrial revolution and the other during the increase in white collar jobs. Unfortunately, he briefly mentions the problems within her data analysis, notably the absence of a control group (i.e. men). I agree w/ Wright that Goldin’s analysis has showed the importance of analyzing the gender gap between men and women in further detail. I would be interested in an analysis of the historic absence of business’s owned by women.

[Steven L Choi]

I find it interesting that even though coeducation has become institutionalized from the very beginning of American history, wage gap between genders still exists. Goldin shows empirical data confirming this fact, however, she also counters by arguing the wage gap is becoming increasingly marginal. Goldin offers a unique aspect of the social synergy between work and marriage with the observation that discrimination of women in the job market is apparent despite the highly competitive market. Once a woman becomes married, firms tend to believe that women are likely to quit or unlikely to stay at the job for a productive amount of time; therefore we see discrimination against women in the workforce and the salary or wage differences versus men.

[Lauren Tombari]

I was very interested in learning a little about the economic history of women, so I really enjoyed reading Gavin Wright’s review of Goldin’s Understanding the Gender Gap. I had no idea that discrimination against women in the labor force took the form of actual, written laws, just like other forms of discrimination, such as Jim Crow Laws used to discriminate against African Americans. For example, a marriage bar was established in St. Louis in 1897, and wasn’t even challenged until 1941. Previously, I just thought that women faced prejudice in the workplace, not outright laws preventing them from working.

This makes me wonder, why do historical instances of discrimination against women seem to be not as widely known as instances of discrimination against African Americans? In high school, I learned numerous ways in which black people were discriminated against, but my knowledge of discrimination against women is still very limited, in my opinion.

Something else about this article that really surprised me was that even “prominent liberals like John Kennedy and Eleanor Roosevelt opposed […] the Equal Rights Amendment” (1161) in the 1960s! Even the supposedly “progressive political agenda” did not want married women in the workforce! Husbands were supposed to support the family and wives were supposed to stay at home. My only explanation for this is that the perceived “behavioral norms” for women – specifically that married women remain at home – were firmly entrenched in American society, and these perceptions probably still influence America even today.

[Anna Romanowska]

Reading Writes commentary was great learning experience. I definitely expanded my knowledge about the historical premises for the development of female labor market. But what was even more interesting was getting involved in the intellectual discourse that can be viewed as a critical thinking exercise. It is really important for future economists or policy makers to be able to analyze the complexity of factors that influence and shape the labor market.
I was surprised that the marriage bars were a phenomenon of the 20th century. This type of discrimination and inequality that reinforces stereotypes about gender roles was detrimental to female labor force participation. One could say that the gender gap is not only a result of social norms and historical conditions that made the position of women less favorable on the labor market, but rather an expected outcome of government policies and campaigns similar to those in the “progressive” agenda.

[Justin Fong]

Wright's review of Goldin's article points out key observations regarding wage differentiation between men and women in the 20th century. The blatant inequality of women's wages certainly derive from American culture. Women in America were not typically apt to develop their work experience because these skills rarely transferred across a wide range of industries. Before women entered the clerical sector, any thought of promotion was unheard of, and women at home largely spent the bulk of their savings. Furthermore, I definitely agree that American tradition clearly implied that men were supposed to be the sole breadwinners. Obviously this concept has changed, but this mentality hindered the rapid progress of wage equality for American women. A society structured around a successful historical tradition will likely progress slowly towards an issue such as race or gender equality.

[Sarah Lim]

This article was very interesting for me to learn about the discrimination that women went through in a short of amount of time since Wright talks about how Goldin concentrates on a specific period of time like the industrial Revolution and the rest of the 20th century and does not talk about the times when agriculture were the main source of jobs. I found the analysis very interesting although Goldin seems to have not taken into account some factors like Wright mentioned like including a control group of men in her study. I would think that it would be important to compare the earning of women to something and to analyze it from there. The analysis was very interesting, but I do understand that it is difficult for Goldin to take into account the effect of certain things like traditions and beliefs on the gender gap and putting quantitative numbers to the effects and analysis.

[Athena Ullah]

Disentangling the historical factors that cradled the “gender gap” and “wage discrimination” throughout the 19th and 20th Century is indispensable to understanding the labor history of American Women. Gavin Wright provides a probing analysis of Claudia Goldin’s work on “Understanding the Gender Gap: An economic history of American women.” Historical data reveals that while the gender gap narrowed, wage discrimination and inequality against women grew along side women gaining far more qualifications over time. Golden seeks to answer this very modern phenomenon of why the female labor force has increased significantly throughout the last century with a commensurate persisting pay gap. She posits her analysis through economic factors or market fundamentals and non-economic factors that are embedded into society’s sociopolitical framework and consciousness. While both contributing factors take on an “interactive and evolutionary” quality according to Wright, he additionally mentions that Goldin’s analysis could have been more comprehensive if the following would have been included: the roles of technological engendering of women, internal economy and dynamics of the American household, and the educational attainment of women.

[Tiffany G T Tam]

Gavin Wright’s review article of “Understanding the Gender Gap” written by Claudia Goldin analyzes Goldin’s work and ideas. Wright presents the idea that historical context has a lot to do with the impact of the present. He analyzes the two propositions that Goldin makes in her book; Goldin believes that the differences in women’s pay are due to gender gaps and wage discrimination. However, Wright’s belief that the past has to do with what can be analyzed in the future takes place here. He believes that the gender gap and wage discrimination are not ideas that have been historically constant meaning that these ideas are recent findings and have not been historically engraved in the differences of women wages. Wright also states a problem he saw with Goldin’s finding—the lack of research on men wages. This is a very good point that Wright brings up because although the main topic of her book is women wages, it would be necessary to compare the women wages to another type of wages. The lack of information of men wages in Goldin’s book weakens the points and ideas that she tries to illustrate and prove. The overall review that Wright gives is a good starting point of the improvements that Goldin could make.

[Breann Gala]

After reading Wright’s critique of Goldin a couple of interesting points really stuck out. The first point being that the shift in women working in factories to clerical work actually meant more wage discrimination. Whereas women’s wages in factories were determines by pieces made, office work and measuring its productivity was less objective. Also women were during this period had higher qualifications (education and experience), yet experience brought a larger wage gap. While this data comes a 1900 to 1940 comparison, its implications resonate with today’s gender gap. Attending an institution like Berkeley, where there are more female students than male, one begins to forget that that gender gaps, wage discrimination, and prior systems like marriage bars were not just institutionalized in labor and women’s history but come to affect the job market, familial structures, and societal structures today.

[Chandresh Patel]

In a review of “Understanding the Gender Gap,” the author, Gavin Wright, critiques the work of Claudia Goldin and her analysis of the gender gap in wages throughout America’s history. She attempts to answer the question: are the trends in women work and pay due to market fundamentals or actual attitudes? It is interesting to note that before the rise of industrialization women did indeed work and receive higher wages as experienced continued. However, with the growth in the industrial sector, there was a change in attitude to unwelcome women into the work force. I would argue that it is both the market trends and change in attitudes that lead to the gender gap, similar to that of Wright’s and Goldin’s analysis. Yet, to fully understand the effects on the gender gap, one must first determine the direct causations of wage rates by education, experience, and many other factors through America’s history.

[Alice Lin:19078943]

Before reading this article, I did not know that labor discrimination against women was actually in the form of written laws much like the ones used against African Americans. Growing up in America and not learning so much about the gender inequality that existed in the past seems as if it was not so important compared to the racial discrimination against the African Americans. It is very interesting that the typical norm was for women to stay home after marriage in America is the same as the tradition and belief of the Chinese culture that still happens today. Although Berkeley is a school that gives you a perception of gender equality, I am sure that gender gap and wage inequality still exist in many places in the United States today.

[Yelena Vinarskiy]

I found the most interesting argument in Wright’s, “Review of Understanding the Gender Gap”, to be his challenge of Goldin’s claim that marriage bars and other forms of discrimination against women in the first half of the 20th century were in place because they were profitable. He challenges her view that marriage bars became more prominent with the spread of personnel departments (and thus the increase in clerical jobs available to women) as an institutional way to “induce turnover”. Wright would rather focus on the fact that marriage bars were representative of a social consensus during that time which assumed that, if given the choice, women would rather be married and at home with the kids. The “social package” of higher wages and general protections for employed women, along with “active discouragement for paid employment for married women”, was therefore simply a reflection of the “core premise” that families would want to have “children in school and the wives at home”. While I see why Wright points to the historical context of marriage bars as a way to highlight that their institutionalization wasn’t pure discrimination, I cannot help but question the universality of the social norms he points to. It seems to me that social norms are never universal and that marriage bars could indeed have been a way to “induce turnover” since wages increased with experience. Just because social norms dictated that wives were to be at home doesn’t mean that individual preferences of married women reflected these norms. At the end of the day, Goldin and Wright agree that the institutionalization of marriage bars and other forms of discrimination had long-run consequences for women in the workforce.

[David Thomason]

Wright’s review of Goldin’s book “Understanding the Gender Gap” most interesting point is that the social package of compulsory public education and higher wages, which were fought for by progressives, of the time actually obstructed the closing of the gender gap. This is because these developments came along with discouraging married women from working due to a “social consensus” that wives and children should not work if the husband’s wages were enough to support the family. While it’s probably naïve to believe that there wasn’t some sexism that prevented the gender gap from closing, it’s very interesting that progressives like John Kennedy and Eleanor Roosevelt were against the Equal Rights Amendment because it may jeopardize some of the social progress that was made with the “traditional family” in mind. Wright makes a good point, that students of today are easy to dismiss people who oppose advancement of women’s rights as simply ignorant, but when framed this way, it appears that there is something more to it than that.

[Sean Tennerson]

When reading Wright's review, I greatly appreciated that he, as an introduction, presents the idea of the difference between new economic historians who insist upon the importance of economic history in accordance with modern economic events. Using the idea that there are no long run changes that could wash away the past and so economic events must be considered, not only with economic models but with a firm knowledge of historical developments and outcomes. This opening concept is very applicable to a critique of Goldin's writings because, as she analyzes the trends of the gender gap in American economic history, she is speaking about a past occurrence that is still part of the economy in America and the lives of Americans. From reading Wright’s assessment, I conclude that Goldin has done extensive work in gathering information regarding the history of women in the workplace in America in reference to their interactions with their male counterparts and their wages, and how those wages differed from those of the men. I found that one of the most important ideas included in this review, in the midst of all of the very intriguing facts and analysis, is that when considering the economic situation of women in the work place in the past, even as recent as the mid 20th century, it is imperative to remember that everyone, including women, regarded women's place at work to be very different than people do today. This consideration induces different views of institutions like marriage bars that would be seen as ridiculous in the American economy today. This is another time when Wright's initial inclusion of the new implementations of historical economic analysis returns as a reminder that economic trends must viewed not only with economic models of supply and demand but with an appreciation of the historical conditions which are applicable.

[Vinit Sukhija]

Wright's anaylsis of Goldin's book brought up some interesting points. I was most interested, however, in the narrowing of wage ratios during the industrial age. Wright claims that the wage gap was significantly reduced in this age (and subsequently in the white collar age, c. 1890-1930), but the information he provides for this era seems counterproductive to and contradictory to the statistics this era produced. Wright claimed that women were still discriminated in GREAT magnitudes, being subjected and confined to a few certain industries, most notable being the textile industry. On top of this, women were further hindered by three salient factors: lack of experience needed, lack of potential for promotion, and wage-by-piece methods. Personally, this seems incredibly incongruous to me; discrimination seemed SO prevalent that I simply can't understand how the wage gap could have decreased in any form. Wright also attributes the shift from industry to clerical work as essential to the addition of women in the labor force. Once again, the information Wright provides seems paradoxical. Despite the switch from industrial wage-by-piece work to clerical lump-wage work, wage discrimination actually increased.

I agree with Lauren Tombardi's claim that in our proverbial "US History" classes, we learn much more about African-American discrimination than we do women discrimination. This simply could be because ethnic discrimination was considered more blasphemous, but other than that, I can't think of any other logical reasons that would condone or reinforce this claim. In fact, I can think of a multitude of claims AGAINST this claim, such as the fact that the population of women is greater than the population of African Americans. I believe Lauren's claim brings up a good point on what should be taught in American History classes. Luckily, Wright's article gave me a good perspective on the discrimination of women.

[Ian Ebert]

Something that I thought about after reading Goldin’s article, is that because today there are more women in college then there are men, if in 10-20 years women will average higher salaries then men. The other thing I would be interested in finding out is what the men to women ratio is at graduate school. I wouldn’t be surprised if women’s salaries are no longer 82 cents to a mans dollar in a few years. Something I did not know about until reading this article was what marriage bars are. I would have thought that it was unconstitutional for employers to tell women they cannot work if they are married. To think there were laws like these less than 60 years ago is amazing to me.

[Richard Schimbor]

When reading this article, I gave a considerable amount of thought to the education system in the United States and its stance towards women. The idea that free schooling provided to women in the United was intended to propagate the educational system because the opportunites for employment were so limited to educated women that they were forced to become schoolteachers. There are considerable benefits to creating a system in which skilled women are funneled into vital service jobs, such as teaching and nursing, that were considered well suited for women's skills, and the lack of skilled nurses and teachers now is evidence that if other opportuniteis had presented themselves many women would not have become teachers and nurses. There is considerable loss of efficiency from limiting women to only a few occupations, as there is with other types of discrimnation because the worker with the greatest marginal product does nit necessarily get the job.

[Xia Hua]

Wright reviews Goldin’s analysis of the two periods of distinct narrowing of the gender gap—the American Industrial Revolution and the era of rise in white-collar employment, and gender wage discrimination. I thought about the paradox that wage discrimination was increasing at the same time the gender gap was narrowing. The two periods marked narrowing of gender gap but increasing of wage discrimination. Wright’s explains this paradox by saying that as education becomes more important in employment and as more educated women entered the labor force, “the rise in women’s ‘qualifications’ was considerably faster than the rise in their earnings.”
Women face statistical discrimination. Statistics show that married women are more likely to leave the labor force. Therefore, firms looking to hire long time employees are more likely to hire men. Although taking account true data into hiring decisions is efficient, women then face statistical discrimination in the job force.
Social discriminatory practices lead to the market behaviors. Social norms such as women should withdraw from the work force after marriage explain labor discrimination rather than more economic reasons because economically the market moves toward equal employment.

[Jenny Kwon]

I found it interesting that there were differences in wages between men and women because of the situations that were in place. The substitution of machinery for human strength played a role in the hiring of male workers. Male workers had more strength to use certain machinery that women were too weak to use. The technologies of the industrial revolution created a barrier for women to enter into certain workforces. For example, mule spinning was exclusively masculine. However, the U.S developed the ring spinning machine in order to take advantage of the abundant supply of female workers. I found it easily to agree with the statement regarding older women that were returning to the workforce and how they wouldn’t be more inclined to receive pay advances because these certain jobs were more accommodating to young single women. It is especially more compelling if they were not planning to reenter into the workforce, and therefore, didn’t invest in appropriate training or education.

[Simon Shen]

Two concepts that are presented in the article but not extensively elaborated upon (in my opinion) are the income and substitution effects as explanations for changes in womens' labor force participation. I was intrigued by these two explanations, and did some of my own research on them. I was fascinated to find a graphical model decomposing changes in labor force participation into the income effect and the substitution effect. The model takes the form of a simple demand curve with household income on the y axis and # of hours worked on the x axis, in which changes in wages either shift the entire curve (income effect), or pivot the curve around its y intercept. The effect of a rise in womens' wages can be attributed to a combination of the income and substitution effects. The income effect causes women to work less as wages increase, the substitution effect causes women to work more. Traditional economic theory has held that during much of the 20th century, the substitution effect was more powerful than the income effect, causing increased womens labor force participation corresponding with increased wages. However, Goldin argues against this traditional economic thinking, placing emphasis on cultural and societal factors, such as expectations, norms, and attitudes. I feel that this is a very valid argument to make, as societal values and attitudes (that are very hard to quantify) are often a major factor in shaping the demographics of employment.

[Kristin Rose]

Gavin Wright's analysis of Claudia Goldin's book on the economic history of American women provides an interesting perspective on the two "central issues" which Goldin discusses in her book: the persistence of the wage gap between men and women, and the rising rate of participation of women in the labor force. I was particularly interested in the part in which Wright discusses Goldin's theories on the development of wage discrimination concerning female workers, even during the Industrial Revolution. Other topics I found interesting were the role of married women in the labor force and the effect of the household on women and the workforce. I do agree with Wright, however, that further analysis of the subject of education and its influence on female participation in the labor force would be beneficial to Goldin's study. I also agree with other students that it would have been better had Goldin and Wright discussed more social and cultural factors in the gender wage gap, such as gender stereotypes and discrimination in hiring practices.

[Huinan Zhang]

Gender issue in work firld has been brought up by many people nowadays in society, and it is very interesting to read about the development of women labor force from 19th century to 20th. After reading Gavin Wright's review of Claudia Goldin's book Understanding the Gender Gap, I had a closer look up at the economic history of women. I am glad to find out that through out the past century, there were indeed two surges of relative female wages and narrowing the gender gap. First surge was a lot of young and unmarried women were hired by textile industries during the industrial revolution in 1830's and 40's. The second massive hiring of female is the rise of clerical sector. This two improvement still affect a lot in today's society--these industries are still pretty much occupied by females. However, the gender bias is embedded in these improvement, and the condition for married women still didn't change a lot. Wright explained a lot about the labor force for married women, I agreed that their condition need to be improved and further study on evolution of technology, internal economy of the househould, and women's education is needed for better understanding of women, especially married women's, economic status in America.

[Christina Chen]

Wright's article on Goldin's book discusses the persistent presence of the gender gap throughout American economic history and the forces that drive this gap. Wright elucidates how Goldin's book predominantly focuses on economic events after the 1850s. Essentially, Goldin emphasizes that clerical work not only caused a significant increase in women's paywage, but also contributed to greater "wage discrimination". While I feel that Wright's article is very insightful in pointing out interesting notations in Goldin's book, I did not understand how the marriage bar explains both "glass-ceiling" wages and an increase of women's participation in education. However, I found it really interesting that Wright pointed out Goldin's limited examination of the gender role throughout American history, because, as previously mentioned, Goldin only discusses events from the 1850s and onward; I would have been interested to see how and what specific economic events contributed to the U-shape (married women's participation in the labor force) graph from Wright's perspective on wage discrimination.

[Stella Kang]

I've read a bit on Goldin's theories in previous classes, but what I got out most from Wright's article was his suggestions about where her theories were weak and suggestions for further research into areas she didn't use for her argument. I didn't know that the Goldin estimated earnings functions for women only, and not for men's also even though she was arguing about relative women's earnings. She didn't use any data with a control group of comparable men, which would have made her argument stronger if evidence supported it. Goldin understood that there were many more dimesions and possibilities that could be explored further; and it would be interesting to see the results of research into ideas like women's work in relationship to the evolution of technology.
It was interesting to see how studying the historical dynamics of women's labor supply curves could provide enlightening information about the background of the female labor force. Goldin argues that trends in women's work & pay were governed by "market fundamentals" as well as societal changes in norms and institutions, emphasizing that 'history matters.'

[Delara Bastani]

Goldin and Wright’s comments on wage equity give great insight into the plight of women in the 20th century. However, it must not be forgotten that many of the issues faced then persist now in the 21st century. Goldin asks “did women have an equal chance at promotion and career advancement?” Wright responds “clearly not” and marriage bars, profitability issues, and the views of women towards working are offered as possible explanations for the unequal opportunities in career advancement. These issues are virtually nonexistent in American society today, yet gender inequity still plagues many of our institutions, including the University of California system. Two different professors on the UC committee for gender equity have relayed some startling information to me. For example, women make up about 50% of UC medical school classes, but women constitute around 20% of all school of medicine (SOM) faculty and 27% of all new SOM hires. However, these women, once hired, earn the same wages as men. Female physicians are among the most highly educated and productive women in the world, yet they are not as highly demanded as men. At the end of the article Wright states that in order to “complete the economic history of American women, we will first have to develop a better understanding than we now have of the connections among education, productivity, and the labor market at different phases of American history.” This isolated case of SOM clearly shows that education and productivity are not the issue. Goldin and Wright attempt to take an economist’s approach to analyzing the gender gap issue. Perhaps their approach works to describe circumstances of the 20th century, but it does not seem sufficient in explaining today’s world. In my opinion, sociological issues lie at the core of the problem, and mindsets rather than institutions are the driving force behind gender inequity. I do not think that economics alone can be used to tackle the issue of gender inequity.

[Brandon Leong]

Although Claudia Goldin wrote her analysis on the "gender gap" over 15 years ago, it still has more relevance than ever before. This is so because although, men earn a higher income, gain promotions faster, and occupy more prestigious titles than females, women have higher enrollment in post-secondary education. I find this completely fascinating because I used to be under the impression that men had higher enrollments in college. In a research paper I wrote for Economics 175, I discovered that women are a majority in most fields of study. However, they have been historically and are currently a minority in a few subjects, most notably in engineering and physical sciences. Although my research highlighted the fact that the barriers to education for women are breaking down, it underlined the sad reality that although women are attaining equal or even higher levels of education than males, males are still earning higher incomes and are accelerating the job hierarchy at faster rates.

[Aseem Padukone]

Like Anna, I was struck by the prevalence of marriage bars in American history. Yet what I find interesting is how employers justified the implementation of these marriage bars as they practiced statistical discrimination. Goldin argues that marriage bars were profitable, and as Wright explains, she is "reluctant to say that the marriage bar simply represented a social norm." Yet these employers justified the shunning of married women in the workforce by convincing themselves that it would just be "more work for mother."

These employers made this a win-win situation for themselves. Not only were they profiting from the implementation of marriage bars, they come out of the situation looking like the good guys; they were doing a favor for the women by allowing them to focus on their children (or so they said). And seemingly, for the longest time, society didn’t question this assertion and even many women came to accept it. This displays how industries and firms were able to use social norms and manipulate them in a manner such that they greatly benefit from them.

[Wei Li]

Goldin's analysis on the "Gender Gap" is as relavent today as it was fifteen years ago whenever she wrote this work. Today, though gender inequity has been seemingly combatted, women are still being regarded differently in both wage and position. A qualified woman is paid significantly less than her male counterpart and there is a heirarchical boundary that most women cannot cross. In most major companies around the world, males hold nearly 100% of all high level positions. Additionally, even if women make it to these positions, much of their work is placed under scrutiny. A lot of the failures of companies have been attributed to "having a woman ceo." Thus we find that gender inequity hasn't stopped yet.

[Timothy Wong]

Goldin's analysis pointed out by Wright about the gender gap in wages in the past two centuries is interesting point of view. Goldin says that there wasn't or isn't really wage/employer discrimination in wages. The reason there is a gender gap in wages is more likely a result of other types of discrimination: customer, statistical, and institutional discrimination. Some of these disriminations result from prejudice towards women. However, the main reason women weren't able to have the same salaries as men was because they had a low opportunity to move up in work, which resulted in lower wages. There was no opportunity for promotions. Women also didn't get the chance to gain enough work experience to give them significant raises. Although women have more opportunities and jobs open to them in the world today, there is still not a lot of women in higher positions; so, institutional discrimination is still evident today, and there is still a gender gap in wages.

[Dwight Upshaw]

Wright gives a good analysis of Goldin's book on gender inequalities that have been apparent through the history of labor in America. Goldin provides us with some clear statistical research that shows how the gender gap was narrowed and the key issues surrounding what would be considered narrowing of the gender gap. Within the article we see why the wage gap would be narrowed with industrialization because women apparently would gain more from less manual intensive labor instead of just pressing buttons and putting things together. The interesting aspect was not that the gap was narrowing, but that overall job discrimination was at its height. Goldin points out that women got the jobs that had no skilled work and no opportunity for moving up. This was the key element in the discrimination of women in the workforce. It is not that wages at the bottom or even in the middle are all that different. It is more so that the women hit a ceiling which that could not break through and that is where the true discrepancy stems. it stems from the discrimation between industry and not wages per-say.

[Min Ru Jiang]

Wright makes a close analysis on Goldin’s article, “Understanding the Gender Gap”; Goldin claims that the gender gaps and wage discrimination are the causes of differences in women’s wage. Wright points out that Goldin’s uses of data do not explain well about the inequality of women’s wages. Goldin’s findings are not persuasive and sufficient because she draws her argument based on only a specific period of time and the surveys with absences of a control group of men. The researches on the comparable men’s wages are deserved more attention in order to make further analysis of wage inequality. After reading the article, I found interesting to know that American culture causes inequality of women’s wage.

[Patrick Traughber]

Gavin Wright’s review of Goldin’s article did a good job of bringing forward the key points of Understanding the Gender Gap, and the commentary he offered was an excellent supplement to her work. What I found interesting was how wage discrimination grew throughout the twentieth century, while the gender gap narrowed. This suggests that as more women entered the workforce, the more their relative wages decreased. Also, Wright described how the wage differential could be seen as a function of job experience, rather than overt discrimination. As women gained experience, they were not promoted at the same rate as men, and had fewer transferable skills. Similarly, wage discrimination rose as experience rose in clerical positions-an industry that grew from 1890 to 1930 and employed a relatively large share of women. Wright’s final paragraphs about the possible reasons for discrimination against women were thought-provoking. One reason I thought of while reading the article that Wright didn’t discuss was the perception of men as the sole provider in the household. Since fewer women were employed in the early 20th century compared to today, the typical family’s income came mostly from the male figure. I wonder if employers felt that married women should not take a job a man could take because she presumably already has a man to provide for the family, and her taking a job would reduce the number of jobs available to men who need work. Finally, I would hypothesize that another reason married women were discriminated against in the 19th and early 20th century was because employers new that since most married women also had a husband to provide income, the women’s income was less crucial to the welfare of the family. Employers would have less control over an employee who had alternatives, whereas a male employee would be more dependent upon the employer, and therefore put up with less favorable conditions, fewer benefits, etc. All in all, this article was well done and serves as a reminder of the discrimination that women had to endure in our country’s history.

[Hanwen Chang]

This is a review article by Gavin Wright on “Understanding the Gender Gap” by Goldin. According to Wright, Goldin’s work engages in two of the important issues of gender issue in economics regarding female labor force participation rate and the gap between women and men’s earnings. Wright’s assessment of Goldin’s book is an interesting read. It definitely opened my mind and made me realized the different types of discrimination and the laws barring women from working. It’s hard to believe that marriage bars were used to prevent women from working. Come to think of it, it’s very ironic how 60-70 years ago, women aren’t allowed a spot in the society and now in America, some of the most important political figures are women.

[Erin Trimble]

Wright’s review of Claudia Goldin’s Understanding the Gender Gap provides a comprehensive analysis of the two central “women’s issues” Goldin tackles in her book: labor force participation and the wage gap. I appreciate the broad historical view that Goldin takes in her approach of these issues, taking into account both economic explanations and changes in social norms and expectations over time. Moreover, I found the most interesting point discussed by Wright to be that the general consensus which held that marriage made withdrawal from the work force necessary included the views not only of men but of most women as well. Though it is difficult for today’s students to believe (myself included), most women accepted the system of marriage bars and other restrictions in the period before the 1960s—families wanted the wives at home, assuming the husband’s earnings were enough to make this possible. I agree with Wright when he says that this “may be the most important lesson from this phase of women’s history.”

[Kevin Chiu]

Gavin Wright’s article review of “Understanding the Gender Gap” is quite refreshing as it touches upon the topic of discrimination against women, which I believe, is not often emphasized as much as say the discrimination against African Americans. The article mentioned that the wages paid to men and the wages paid to women differed by a large amount but the gap narrowed in two distinct events in American history: the Industrial Revolution and the period of increased white collar labor.
Although Goldin’s book addressed the discrimination of women well, Wright mentions that one flaw of her book is the lack of comparing women’s wages against the wages of men. Not using this analysis makes her arguments more difficult to prove even though it is evident that the wages of women have been much lower due to factors such as education.

[Jun-An Chen]

In Gavin’s review article, he first talks about the focus of the author’s book in a few areas of topics, and then he goes on critiquing the book. These areas of focus are women’s job in manufacture and clerical sector, labor participation by women, and institutional restriction. Gavin states that the gender gap is recent and has not been constant. Initially, female employment has been completely absent from the manufacturing industry; however, slowly, female workers begin to enter positions that had “predictable characteristics, no opportunities for promotion, no qualification for entry, and payment by the piece.” Wage discrimination wasn’t present in the early 1900s. In fact, compared to clerical work, there was about 30% more wage gap in office work than factory job. This gap is attributed to the fact that office jobs, unlike factory work, have a barrier to entry. Labor participation, according to article, started increasing prior to WWII. There was a large increase of married women in the workforce. Finally, the article discusses on matters regarding work rules that discouraged married women from getting jobs. The reasoning behind the marriage bars is that employers believe loyalties of the worker will be split between family and work. Furthermore, there is a higher chance for taking days off because of children and the fact that married women probably won’t work for long. These problems can easily be avoided by hiring a male or unmarried female. One important point made in this section is that most firms do not have the evidence to back this rules, these regulations are more of a social norm that firms follow. Even some women accepted this norm early on. It is only after many years that these marriage bars were challenged. Lastly, Gavin raises several questions yet to be answered by the article which includes internal economy of families, educational trends of women, and technological advances and gender aura of occupations.

[Sherry Wu]

I think the article would have been more informative and helpful in terms of learning the material for the course had it not been a critique of a book; sometimes it was confusing to keep up with Wright's opinion and Goldin's opinion. The material still interested me, however, since it dispelled many of the common misconceptions about the discrepancies between the wages of men and women; I found the argument about the impacts of the shift from manufacturing to clerical work particularly compelling. The arguments would have been more effective, however, had they also examined the issue from a more theoretical perspective, or by examining the shifts in culture and values of nineteenth and twentieth century America; Goldin seems to have thoroughly gone through employers' records and surveys, but neglected the background or motivation for such discrimination to arise in the first place.

[Diana Li]

Wright's article was fascinating because it showed that within a century,the dramatic social change regarding to women in the workplace. In the beginning of the 19th century, it was the norm for women to stay home and raise the children while men were the sole breadwinners. The first change happened during the industrial revolution where women were hired by manufacturing companies. During this time, women mainly suffered from industrial discrimination. However, as the shift occurred where women moved into clerical jobs, they sufferred from employer and wage discrimination. This discrimination still lingers. Today, it is the social norm and not the exception for both wife and husband to work.

[jashoda kashyap]

I found Goldin’s conclusions interesting about the type of work that women did before. They did not experience “wage discrimination” exactly, but worked in different areas. In poorer countries today the conditions are really similar to what are described in the article. Factory work is still much feminized and targets female employees. The manner in which the women are treated is also similar in that there are very few qualifications for entry and few opportunities for promotion. I was satisfied by Goldin’s analysis of how the wage gap narrowed from thirty five percent to eight percent after ten years of working. there are many dimensions to the relationship between male and female wages.

[Aneesh Kadakia]

I liked Wright's analysis in pointing out some of the flaws in Goldin's argument, especially when looking into the profitability of "marriage bars, which I had no idea actually existed and were such a overreaching defacto policy across the US. As an economist, Wright looks to see how much of the wage gap and discrimination gap can be attributed to economic factors before going into the sociological factors which obviously require more conjecture and theorizing as opposed to statistical analysis. I think it could be useful to know whether marriage bars were profitable, but since they were not, it is indicator that economic factors were in play and that societal norms were preventing married women from working. Normally we say that when people act rationally, it will defeat social norms but in this case an irrational and unprofitable social norm overrode the economic benefits. I think that in these clerical positions, with their salaries no longer tied to productivity as was the case in manufacturing pieces, there was a bigger opportunity for employers to exploit the women.

[Robert Chomik]

I agree with Goldin's argument that discrimination is historically inherited, even in the face of competitive markets. She proves that not only the market governs economic life. There are social customs, ideas, collectively "the human factor", which market dynamics don't incorporate. I think it's interesting that the gender gap has decreased inconsistently. That is, it didn't form an ever increasing graph. Rather, it has been going up and down (with a general upward trend). Goldin explains that this is due to the fact that different technologies developed at different times. Therefore, technologies developed for primarily male-oriented jobs, such as the steel industry, didn't increase employment of females. This shows the complexity of the gender gap, dependent not only on human discrimination, but a variety of other factors as well. Goldin tries to identify and determine what these factors might have been.

[Simon Zhu]

The most interesting observation in Wright's article, to me, was the fact that women were paid relatively more equal wages working in clothing factories than at the office. The reason was simple, the overriding concern in clothing shops is that you were paid proportionally to how much you produced. On the other hand, in office jobs, the productivity and economic effectiveness of a worker is largely hard to determine and subjective. I find it an interesting implication that at the basic economic level, the market is gender-blind, but as economic rents are accumulated and work is increasingly abstracted from the actual production line, politics and social norms can seep into rational decision making, including determining wages.

[Jessica Li]

Gavin's review of Goldin's analysis on the gender gap offered me some interesting insights into the explanation of the differences between the genders in the labor force. Goldin suggested that discrimination resulting from social institutions, which were the societal norms, expectations and education, provided a logical reasoning as to why discrimination persisted in that era. Also, her analysis on this issue brings awareness to other forms of discrimination, such as racial, and how generalization of a particular demographic group can be counterproductive and inefficient for a discriminatory firm.
Additionally, I agree with Vinit that it was paradoxical that the gender wage gap was narrowing while gender discrimination against women were so prevalent. If women were secluded and concentrated in the few industries with little mobility and promotion, then how was increasing wage equality achieved?

[Alex Zhong]

The most interesting observation made in Wight’s article was that discrimination was a product of societal values and was not due so much due to market forces as it was due to prevailing thought as to what the roles of women should be in the workplace. It was interesting to see what other incentives firms had for keeping the gender gap in wages and it was also interesting to see how women also did not do much to fight for more equality themselves. The article illustrated without a doubt that the gender gap is ultimately a very complex issue that is derived from more than just market fundamentals but ingrained societal values.

[Guadalupe F. Garcia]

This is a rather interesting article which creates a discussion focused around Claudia Goldin’s book on gender wage inequality. The reasons why the gender wage inequality gap exists are far more complex than commonly viewed. It is not just the marriage bars or the Great Depression that led to this inequality in the United States, but rather all kinds of social and political ideologies and policies that have created and maintained this gap for many years. Even women’s own social expectations have helped to maintain this gap. The idea that it was improper for married women to work, led to many women expect to leave the workforce as soon and therefore not care to receive further training, as they would see employment as a very temporary condition that ended around the time of marriage. This led employers to believe that this was most women’s mentality and that ultimately, it was unwise to hire women because they were expected to quit as soon as they married or as soon as marital and/or motherhood obligations arose.

[Christina Kiang]

Wright and Goldin's analysis was an unconventional analysis of the gender gap. Past history courses and books have conditioned me to approach the inclusion of female workers into the labor force during the 19th and 20th century through social effects. I found Goldin's explanation for why wage discrimination was still prevalent as clerical jobs were opening more doors for women very interesting. Although there was a narrow wage gap in the beginning periods of clerical occupations, the gap heavily widens as experience, education, and time factor into income. Consequently, qualification for women grew at a faster pace than the rise of wages. Another interesting point was the use of income and substitution effect to explain why there was increased participation of married women as household income increased. Goldin claims that this was caused by increasing substitution effect and a declining income effect. Overall, Wright's attitude towards Goldin's analysis was respectful while still posing missing questions and assumptions to further understanding of the female labor force.

[Sumana Maitra]

I think Goldin brings up an interesting point about upward mobility in a job. As a woman, I would probably be discouraged to work if I had no chance for promotional gain. I feel that no upward mobility offers a great explanation of why a majority of women decided to stay home and not work. I also found the point of technology as an interesting way to describe the closing gender gap. It seems that this thesis can be supported many different ways. For example, increased technology meant that women could do more housework in less time, which meant that they had more free time. With more free time, women were able to go back into the workforce, yet also be able to do their expected duties.

[Christina Chander]

I think that Wright’s review of Goldin’s piece was very well written. He not only summarizes her findings but gives a good critique as to what points should be taken with a grain of salt due to her research methods. I think he was definitely right when he comments that she should have used men as a control group to compare the women’s data. The most interesting thing I learned from the article was the existence of marriage bars. Though I knew that in history married women didn’t work as much, I never knew that in some places of employment there was a ban on hiring married women or retaining single women that got married. I am very glad that in this day and age, women’s rights are better protected but it makes me sad to know that in certain country, the unfair treatment of women still prevails.

[Angela Vullo]

I think that women today work mostly because they want to be considered worth the same as men whether they make the same amount of money as them or not. Many women these days simply get an education because they want to feel equal to a man instead of wanting to get an education to be educated. I am one of those women who will simply work when I have children because I don't want to feel like the less important partner in the relationship who is pushed into the subservient position in the relationship and feel obligated to care for children.

[Dawn Oberlin]

Gavin Wright’s critique on Claudia Goldin’s article “Understanding the Gender Gap” was interesting and thoroughly developed. As a female intending to enter the workforce after college, the issue involving the “gender gap” in wages has always been a high priority concern. I’ve read extensive sociological research on this issue that draws many conclusions, yet this gap still exists today. Although it has been getting smaller and smaller, Wright illustrates the important point that wage discrimination has historically been increasing at the same time that the gender gap has been narrowing. I believe that in our society there is no reasonable explanation regarding this issue, because this is discrimination based on the gender of workers with the same objective characteristics.

[Kenneth Salas]

In this article, Wright writes a detailed analysis of Goldin’s “Understanding the Gender Gap” in order to further build on the data and historic events that depict the wage discrimination women continue to face in the modern labor force. Wright acknowledges that women’s role in the workforce was not simply limited by “social norms,” but were also subject to local laws that inhibited married women from becoming more active laborers and enhanced the wage gap between male and female workers.

Despite today’s labor laws that protect the rights of historically discriminated groups such as women, African Americans and Hispanics, there continues to be underrepresentation of these groups in the high ranks of corporate America. This reflects that underrepresented groups are still victims of the past and the wage gap will not simply shrink by imposing new laws. In this case, it might take several generations in which women will finally play a dominant role in the workforce and contribute to shifting the American social norm from being dominated by a white male supremacy.

[Chuong Quach]

The most important and interesting concept I found in the article was about "Marriage Bars". It seems that enforcing explicit rules against hiring married women or retaining women in their jobs after marriage is a blatant form of discrimination; however, women did not protest the issue until 1941 (nearly 20 years after Womens Suffrage). This implies that social norms in the past accepted the fact that women were more unproductive than men, especially when married. While in the US marriage bars are not allowed, there still seems to be other forms of marriage bars that exist today. For example, Pregnancy Leave dismisses women from the workplace during time of pregnancy, which could be seen as a way to "get rid" of unproductive pregnant women. Also, in other industrial countries such as Japan and Korea, women are expected and/or encouraged to leave the workplace when they are married even though there no marriage bars in place. Another area that deserves attention would be how the women's role in the workplace has pushed a "double-income" society where both spouses who work allow for a greater increase in income, therefore causing an over inflation of economic growth in the past couple of decades.

[Rosemary Lu]

Gavin Wright's article elaborated on many interesting economic theories on why women in the work place have historically and currently been discriminated against. It theorized that since the discrimination happening may not have been attributed to the wage/employer market discrimination, many reasons for the lack of equality could have been due to more institutional factors. Wright explains very clearly that women had little motivation to work towards improving their employee skills since they often did not anticipate ever getting a raise and that many times the money they earned was not something they could call their own, or keep at the end of the day. Although the article did not go into depth on his explanations as to why these things were happening nor did he go into specific economic reasonings, it was easy to read and sufficient in still being a convincing and accurate article on the gender gap.

[Hoi Kwan]

Gavin Wright's analysis of Claudia Goldin's book is very in depth and informative. I would have appreciated a more critical view. That said I feel just by the review of this book, that it was indeed very informative about treatment of women and how it changed over the years by analyzing the wage gap. It was fascinating to see how the wage gap changed over time along with people's mindset about working women. At first it seems understandable that female employment was limited because before the advent of capital intensive means of production; most manual labor were extremely physically taxing. However, with the service sector blooming one cannot help but feel that this wage gap was unfair. I was especially taken aback by the "marriage bars" because it was a blatant example of discrimination. I do see the logic in it as it caps the labor supply hence sustaining higher wages. What was further disturbing was the educational institutions; which is supposed to usher progress would actually adhere to such dated views.

[Min Park]

Gavin Wright writes a critical analysis of Claudia Goldin's Understanding the Gender Gap, reflecting upon its arguments and also its weaknesses in factual support. One of Goldin’s main arguments was that the gender gap is a result of a social process, which may not be affected by supporting formal institutional regulations passed in order to decrease it. A specific example mentioned in Wright’s review was that during the climax of the Industrial Revolution, the machinery that equated the physical abilities needed to operate it were socially reserved for only the male gender. Thus, in terms of such social discrimination, women were forced to learn tasks of little skill and were placed in a somewhat small and constrained limitation on their selected occupation outside of their home.
This argument of the ineffectiveness of formal institutions without an informal institutional support provided by cultural beliefs is relevant to many other situations besides this example. In many countries, there are existing formal institutions such as a legal system to enforce and honor contracts. However, when the culture of the developing country is aware that the formal institutions are difficult to enforce without cultural support, they will take advantage of this situation and nothing will be solved. This is the same case, it was not until women were taking a direct initiative outside of the traditional constraints placed upon them were they able to make any considerable strides in the workplace.
This tie between economic history and how it affects the present is still prevalent today. Economic historians are frantically researching the past to figure out solutions to contemporary issues. This idea of informal institutions providing support for formal institutions is not revolutionary. In fact, it has been a staple of developing countries for hundreds of years. Wright and Goldin both stress the importance of this historical incidence, and it just further supports the value that economic history has.

[Min Park]

Gavin Wright writes a critical analysis of Claudia Goldin's Understanding the Gender Gap, reflecting upon its arguments and also its weaknesses in factual support. One of Goldin’s main arguments was that the gender gap is a result of a social process, which may not be affected by supporting formal institutional regulations passed in order to decrease it. A specific example mentioned in Wright’s review was that during the climax of the Industrial Revolution, the machinery that equated the physical abilities needed to operate it were socially reserved for only the male gender. Thus, in terms of such social discrimination, women were forced to learn tasks of little skill and were placed in a somewhat small and constrained limitation on their selected occupation outside of their home.
This argument of the ineffectiveness of formal institutions without an informal institutional support provided by cultural beliefs is relevant to many other situations besides this example. In many countries, there are existing formal institutions such as a legal system to enforce and honor contracts. However, when the culture of the developing country is aware that the formal institutions are difficult to enforce without cultural support, they will take advantage of this situation and nothing will be solved. This is the same case, it was not until women were taking a direct initiative outside of the traditional constraints placed upon them were they able to make any considerable strides in the workplace.
This tie between economic history and how it affects the present is still prevalent today. Economic historians are frantically researching the past to figure out solutions to contemporary issues. This idea of informal institutions providing support for formal institutions is not revolutionary. In fact, it has been a staple of developing countries for hundreds of years. Wright and Goldin both stress the importance of this historical incidence, and it just further supports the value that economic history has.

[Mark Wes]

I found the Wright article to be very interesting—especially the discussion about married women. A very important aspect of the disparity between working men and women was the social climate that women had to endure in the work place. As Wright states “the social consensus which held that marriage was tantamount to withdrawal from the workforce included the views of most women.” Wright then further discusses that during that time, if a married woman was working, it was seen as exploitative by her husband—a married woman should be at home raising the children rather than accumulating income. Society wanted women to stay at home. This is vastly different from how society views married women in the work place now. The social climate has changed incredibly in the past 60 years and it is now acceptable (and not necessarily frowned upon) that a married woman have a job to supplement household income.

[Lauren Frasch]

In Gavin Wright's review of Goldin's article, I found two concepts particularly thought provoking. Initially, the idea that as the gender gap decreased, wage discrimination increased seemed counterintuitive. I had always aggregated the two issues of the gender gap and wage discrimination, assuming that if one improved the other was also bound to improve. Goldin points out that they are indeed two separate issues that, in fact, were negatively correlated during the end of 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries. Although the industrial revolution and the rise in the clerical sector increased the supply of the female work force, it also gave women more opportunities to be discriminated against. Another interesting point that Goldin made: the discrimination of women in the workforce was (for the most part) not viewed as a detriment to society until after the fact; women and men accepted the status quo. During this period, women were complacent, and because of the complacency were accomplices in their own oppression. "Progressive policy"-makers and discriminating employers believed that they were merely trying to maintain the American tradition of an "ideal" family/social structure by restricting women in the work force; and most people (including women) agreed. Because collective awareness of discrimination in the work place has only come about within the past 60 years, the wage gap is persistent. Men have had centuries to reach their current wage, while female workers have only started fighting for wages within the last century.

[Christopher Simon Avedissian]

Wright's article was definitely informative and insightful on its analysis of the gender gap within history. His theorizing of the fact that women were dissuaded from the idea of working simply because of the impossibility of upward mobility within the workforce was very well put. If there was no possibility of being able to attain a raise while working extremely hard and putting forth great effort, I wouldn't even work. What I also found very interesting was the fact that actual laws even governed the sway of the gender gap. I simply had no idea that in the past married women were not allowed to be hired, and that single women within the workforce who got married were discharged from employment. But it probably arose from the ideology that women were naturally made to be housewives. Today we still see such discrimination, but mildly as equal opportunity employment is now being enforced.

[Eric Hsiao]

Wright’s article provides a concise description of Claudia Goldin’s book entitled Understanding the Gender Gap, in which the author aims to address economic issues related to the rise of female labor force participation and the gender wage gap.
It is interesting to note that the non-white female labor force participation rate is higher all time periods from 1880 to 1980 (figure 2). This runs counterintuitive to my personal understanding of gender and race discrimination- I would have expected nonwhite females to have lower labor force participation rates based on the logic that nonwhite females are discriminated against more often then white females and thus unable to find employment. The Wright article briefly touches on this fact but does not provide a drawn out explanation.

[Carson Le]

I've always known men in American society were supposed to provide financially for their families, but until reading this article, I never realized the extent that women were expected not to. Knowing this makes the formation and persistance of the gender gap in our society much more understandable.

Near the end of the article, Wright comments on Goldin's positive outlook on the growth of equality in the workplace. This is important to keep in mind because we have the ability to change the preestablished standards, especially with the incredible growth and change that has come about in the 20th century. It's impossible to know what our society will look like in another century, but I expect greater equality will be something our society will continue to strive for.

[Sung Rho]

I also find it interesting that although coeducation has been institutionalized from the beginning of American history, there has been a wage gap between genders which still exists today. I was interested in reading about the economics behind the history of women, because I never thought about the workforce this way. Through Gavin Wright’s review of Goldin’s Understanding the Gender Gap, it shed some light on how and why women were discriminated, and why the gap was prominent through the history. In section, we talked about how the women’s workforce has shown two leaps in the past, with both WWI and WWII. However I was amazed as to how the owners could just kick out the women after they have put so much work into the companies, so that the men could easily take over the jobs. This is why I agree that American tradition clearly implies that men are supposed to be the “breadwinners” which still lingers to today. The analysis was quite interesting, however I also agree that there are certain limits for which Goldin to take into consideration like traditions and beliefs which also affects the gender gap as well.

[Yu (Ray) Zhao]

Wright’s review of Claudia Golden’s book “Understanding the Gender Gap” gives several insights on the wage disparity that has plagued females in the work force throughout American history. One of the biggest factors that contributed to this plight involved the gender institution that was instilled in American society. Because women were potential birth givers, many companies saw this as an impediment to their marginal productivity. As a result, lesser women were hired and the discriminatory market also caused them to have to accept lower wages. Furthermore, Wright states that employers who were not discriminatory could still have a preference towards hiring men over women. This is once again a byproduct of the gender institution in society because this method was used to help make the employees (mostly male) feel more comfortable working with individuals of the same gender.

[Cam-Tu Nguyen]

Gavin Wright's review of Claudia Goldin's book "Understanding the Gender Gap" shows a more indepth critique of Goldin's view of discrimination of women working outside the home. Questions such as "Why has the female labor force participation rate risen so dramatically over the past half century, particularly for married women? Why has the gap between men and women's earnings been so persistent over this same period?" raised awareness that are still relevant to today's labor force. Although it might seems like wage differences have been slowly stablize, the male dominant jobs still exist, such as upper managment positions with high salary tend to be male dominant. In today society, most families rely on two incomes to have sufficient support, therefore, requiring the wife/mother to work outside home. Back in the 1920s & 1930s, "the major concerns were indeed that paid employment would simply mean 'more work for mother': that the burden of housework woud not be reduced, except perhaps in socially undesirable ways like neglect of child care." It is true that women working outside the home have more responsibilities, but still the same amount of time and energy needed to be divided among multiple commitments. Everyone has limited time and energy, so as a result, women's additional commitment outside the home could possibly lead to her being less committed at home. Another interesting point that Wright pointed out is "The practice of married wome working outside the home was considered a social evil like child labor, sometimes seen as a form of exploitation of wives by the husbands, at other times viewed as a prime of example of capitalism's ruthless disruption of traditional institutions like the family." Although this claim seems extremely harsh, but it was true then. I thought the way he phrase this idea is quite interesting, especially the terms exploitation and ruthless disruption. Over all, there are so many discouragement toward women working outside of home, such as facing more responsibilities, difficultes given by the employers, not equal chance for promotion and career advancement, and gender discrimination as well.

[Kelly Yang]

Gavin Wrights’ review of Claudia Goldin’s article “Understanding the Gender Gap” brings up interested views on the reasons for the gender gap and wage discrimination. Goldin claims that wage discrimination based on gender gaps were associated with the different types of positions women held. It seemed ironic that women could potentially be making more money working in factories than working as a secretary/clerical work because productivity could be measured more easily in a factory (based on the quantity of goods made) rather than the productivity of secretarial work. It was interesting to see that gender discrimination took place ‘legally’ through laws such as the marriage bar, it seemed as if gender discrimination was similar to racial discrimination (with the Jim Crow laws). When actual laws are established, I think it makes change difficult and extremely slow.

[Kelly Yang]

Gavin Wrights’ review of Claudia Goldin’s article “Understanding the Gender Gap” brings up interested views on the reasons for the gender gap and wage discrimination. Goldin claims that wage discrimination based on gender gaps were associated with the different types of positions women held. It seemed ironic that women could potentially be making more money working in factories than working as a secretary/clerical work because productivity could be measured more easily in a factory (based on the quantity of goods made) rather than the productivity of secretarial work. It was interesting to see that gender discrimination took place ‘legally’ through laws such as the marriage bar, it seemed as if gender discrimination was similar to racial discrimination (with the Jim Crow laws). When actual laws are established, I think it makes change difficult and extremely slow.

[Shuwen (Shirley) Liu]

It is very interesting to write a reading commentary to another commentary of the article. In Gavin Wright's review of Claudia Goldin's book "Understanding the Gender Gap", he talked about Golding’s research studying of the gender discrimination during 1900s and he also made further analysis on this social issue. Between 1920s and 1930s, when women’s rights just happened to start, women’s employments rate had a dramatically increased and salary also has increment too. While we knew that the gender discrimination in employment become less, but it is still an issue in the current society. For example, married women’s employment, single mother’s employment, etc. we still have these problems in our job market.

[Angela Le]

Wright’s review of Goldin’s book provides a rather good summary and critique about the existing explanations of the gender gap. Goldin’s book delves into the different reasons that have created a perpetuated the gap between men and women in the work force and how that gap has been slowly diminishing. Wright’s article provides a quick summary into Goldin’s main points and also makes the reader ask further questions about the importance of women in economic history.

One of the main points that are addressed in the Wright article is wage disparity between men and women that continues on to this day. He focuses more on the institutional restrictions on women through marriage bars and protective legislation. It is actually argued that there wasn’t wage discrimination per se because in the time period from the late 1800s to the early 1900s there was actually a normative rise in women’s wages. However, the institutional restrictions did make it difficult for women to continue pursuing their own wages.

[Shannon Lee]

I found this article very interesting because I always hear about wage discrimination but never really thought why it existed. It makes sense that although more women entered the workforce during the Industrial Revolution and were on their way to becoming "equal", there was a lesser need for them due to the heavy machinery that was mostly used. However, as technology is able to continuously replace the need for manpower, we still see discrimination today, even in the clerical field. I thought it was interesting how there was an actual marriage bar law enforced that discriminated against women. I don't understand why we don't learn of this in our common curriculum as we do about the discrimination against blacks. I believe the ignorance of this information and the serious of the situation of gender discrimination is what is preventing us from actually moving forward.

[Yufei Li]

Wright’s article summarizes Goldin’s new book, “Understanding the Gender Gap” that analyzes the economic transition of American women into the labor force in the United States. With the rise of clerical jobs, women’s wages were impacted by “wage discrimination” that was previously unnoted in history; with the rise of industrial sector employment opportunities for women, men’s wages differentiated from women due to the demand for more work experience – it was not necessarily based on a “wage discrimination” due to gender. But when clerical jobs became available to women coupled with increasing female labor force participation, the requirements for these positions rose dramatically due to the increase in competition. Another phenomenon that Goldin observes is despite rising average household incomes, there was still a noted increase in women’s labor participation rates. This demonstrates that motivation for women to work was not purely due to economic incentive as described by the income effect. Wright mentions that Golden uses both economic as well as non-economic indicators to describe the transition for American women into the labor force. I think it is important for economist to take into account non-economic indicators, because many phenomena cannot be adequately explained by mere static economic models.

[Alexis Geno]

Gavin Wright’s article about the Claudia Goldin’s analysis of the gender income gap is interesting that it brings up facts that do not easily pops up when one thinks about this issue. Like many type of discriminations, it comes from a belief that certain people belong somewhere and they should stay there. This is a core premise in discriminating against hiring married women. Many believe that they belong at home taking care of her husband and children and she has not business working for monetary gains.

According to Goldin though, the Great Depression changed the image of a wife’s place. Although it wasn’t a sudden 180 degrees change, it however did start. The husband alone cannot support the family so a 2 income home began.

The more interesting idea that popped in my head however is whether there is some sort of truth in the beliefs of people who were against married women working. I am not saying that is it wrong that women work, I believe that a woman should be able to do whatever she desires. But the question that lingers in my mind is whether children have been sort of forsaken? By having career minded moms, these women splits their time between work and home and it requires a lot of work and sometimes, something has to give. I am only saying this because growing up with a working mom, I wish I was able to spend more time with her growing up instead of her working a lot. But I guess it is a sacrifice one has to decide whether she should make. Because with her working, she is able to provide for me financially for my education.

[Job Gregory]

I was interested by Wright's comment that today, we tend to think that the inequality in labor opportunity and wages for women in the past were based primarily on ignorance. That older societal norms were sexist, and we have progressed chronologically to improve economic equality for women. If that is the case, why were the wages of women relative to men in the 19th century higher than in the first 50 years of the 20th century? The evolution was not consistent, and the main obstacle for women in getting into the work force seemed the old social norm (which was profitable) mandating a single male household breadwinner. Being an economist, Goldin finds disparity in female worker wages and the inability of married women to work was NOT purely a social institution that existed to protect child labor and women from being forced to work by their husbands.
I also found it interesting how Wright points out that since the beginning of the US, public education has been one sector where there existed relative equality between the sexes. If education is an investment in human capital, and women did better in school than men, they should receive better wages than men, having invested more in themselves. I think Goldin states that women were funneled into certain subjects, in a similar fashion to how markets funneled them into certain professions deemed appropriate at the time (education, nursing, etc.).

[Yaoyao Wang]

I find the discussion of marriage bars to be most interesting in this article. Lazear argued that upward-sloping wage trajectories, which causes wage to grow faster than productivity made firms want to induce turnover and use marriage bar as a device. Goldin argues that marriage bars only applied to married women, so it would not explain the “hire bar”, and salary is usually fixed for office workers after six years on the job. Wright feels that all arguments are plausible but a true understanding of marriage bars is left unanswered. After reading the arguments, I agree with Lazear’s argument. Although salaries may be fixed after the 6th year, rarely did any married women have tenure of six years or above. Goldin argued that to induce turnover would not explain “hire bar”, but hiring entry level women who earn a smaller salary was not as big a concern to firms who would have to retain married women who earn a high salary while being married and being less productive.

[Wei Shao]

I find it most interesting how the big clerical movement in female labor during the 1930s and the 40s were a result of labor supply and not the other way around. I was always under the assumption that the demand for clerical positions during the early 20th century was what drove the high female labor supply as technical training became more popular amongst the female population. However, according to Goldin, it was in fact the high supply of female labors that drove the demand for female labors. Until then, it has always been apparent that girls were better at school than boys were since boys had a tendency to drop out in search for fast-paying jobs. This higher standard of education among the girls was what propelled the female labor force into the clerical sector. However, Goldin also notes how females have a harder time at achieving promotions and the wage gap between men and women would widen as the years of work increased, thus leading me to question the merit system and whether talent is really rewarded in this structure of employment. Ironically, despite girls performing better at school, Goldin also notes how females tend to have a shorter career life due to marriage and pregnancy, and thus their education focuses mainly on short-term career performance with little or no emphasis on promotion and advancement. This then leads to the hiring bar in which married women have a much more difficult time finding a job, and those who were married while employed often faced dismissal. Of course, thinking from the employer's perspective, there are justified reasons for such actions. However, thinking from the social perspective, such actions raised much debate and uproar. One must ask, "is such criteria moral?" The answer would undoubtedly be "no." However, if one asks "is such a criteria profitable?" and the answer would surely be "yes."

[Anthony Samkian]

It was astonishing to read that the “marriage bar” was an actual written law established in 1897 and that women silently accepted the ideology behind this law for such a long time until it was finally challenged by a woman in 1941. Having never learned of this law and its detrimental effects on such a great amount of people in any of the American history courses I have taken before tells me that the discrimination against women in the labor market is clearly an underemphasized topic.
Goldin claims that marriage bars were based on economic grounds and did not simply represent a social norm. However, as Wright mentions this seems like a very strong assertion because firms had little experience in employing married women at that point. While marriage bars might have proved to be profitable for firms, I think because America’s society still greatly emphasized traditional social ideologies in the early twentieth century it is unlikely that marriage bars were solely implemented for economic reasons.

[Alex Zaman]

Gavin Wright delivers a fairly comprehensive review of Claudia Goldin’s work by thoroughly summarizing the logistics behind the gender gap throughout history. What I found to be of significant importance regarding methodology was his mentioning of the changing dynamic of economic history- how historical research is being theorized to explain modern occurrences and trends. I was particularly interested in the way that certain internal household circumstances could affect the gender gap. For instance, the “marriage bars” policy that prevented married women from being hired was a noteworthy limitation on the advancement of women in labor. While Goldin notes that this is due to a rather clear difference in productive capabilities, it still represented a form of discrimination which stagnated the gender gap despite increased labor force participation. Goldin’s work is never more pertinent than now, especially as we see an increase in secondary and post-secondary enrollment for women. I think it would be interesting to note changes in the gender gap in the next twenty years due to the numerous anti-discriminatory practices taking shape as well as increased parity for both genders in technology-specific occupations.

[Soo Hyun Kim]

As this article stated, the perpetual wage gap has been narrowing albeit at a slow pace. Even when accounting for factors that determine wages, women were and still are paid less than men. However, it does not make much sense to me how this pattern can continue forever. Eventually, the wage gap has to turn into a thing of the past. If firms can tap into a comparable labor force of women at a cheaper price than the price of the male labor force, it makes sense that the firms will hire additional female workers until they sufficiently raise the demand for female workers. The rise in demand should be enough to completely reduce the wage gap. Assuming women and men have the same productivity at work, I cannot see how profit-maximizing firms can continue the tradiation of the wage gap.

[Stephanie Pai]

Gavin's review on Goldin's book "Understanding the Gender Gap" brings up points that reason why the there is this gap. Although Goldin provides qualitative reasoning for this gender gap, there are other factors instilled within society that also causes this gap to occur between genders. For years, women were considered the "weaker sex". Having the idea of a woman in a factory and working outside the house was unheard of. But during WWII, women became the huge workforce in industries. It was then, that society began to accept the idea of a working woman. And although the gender gap did narrow, wage discrimination still occurred. Wage discrimination still occurred for several reasons due to statistical and institutional discrimination.

[Richard Paek]

Although clerical work led to higher incomes and greater job opportunities for women, Goldin believes it also led to greater wage discrimination. In manufacturing, women were paid on a per unit basis which adjusted work based on performance. However, in clerical positions, performance or productivity is not as readily measured. Without a good way to measure productivity, employers could easily discriminate against women. Additionally, married women were also put into less paying positions because they were expected to retire earlier than men because of household duties like raising a child. Goldin believes that the restrictions on managerial positions for women show that male prejudices existed.

[Qingyun Tang]

The article mainly does an in-depth analysis on Goldin's book "Understanding the Gender Gap”, which focuses on the wage different between man and women in America. Wright offers another view that is different from Goldin’s. One thing I find interesting is that the method used by Goldin to analysis women’s wage is not very accurate. Wright comments that Golden mainly focuses on women’s side, and thus lacks a control group of men’s data. It’s good that Goldin compares women with women, but it’d be more persuasive if she takes men’s data by herself instead of taking the data from someone else. I think Wright is correct for pointing out this possible measuring error.

[Raymond Kei]

Understanding the Gender Gap is an article that review the analysis and conclusion that Claudia Goldin made in her new book. Goldin tried to find the solution for questions such as why has female labor force participation rate risen so dramatically over the past half century, particularly for married women, and why has the gap between men and women's earnings been so persistent over this same period. However, Goldin's strategy to analyze the topic is sharply limiting the range of topics under detailed discussion. Several subjective areas are women's work in relationship to the evolution of technology, the internal economy of the household, and the attention on women's education.

[Ben Sumarnkant]

Wright’s article about Goldin’s book Understanding the Gender Gap raises several interesting questions that may appear at first glance to be unintuitive to traditional thought. One would imagine that although there exists a disparity in the wages between males and females, this disparity should be narrowing as more and more females enter the labor force. The conclusion Goldin reached that the 35 percent wage gap narrowed with work experience using data between 1888 and 1907 is indeed startling. The idea that “the rise in women’s ‘qualifications’ were considerably faster than the rise in their earnings” is very interesting in that it helps describe how the wage gap in modern days can widen with experience.

[Yu Xu]

I have always thought that the discrimination against women have always been culturally, and it surprised me after reading the article that this discrimination was actually reinforced by official law such as the marriage bar.
The discrimination against women is one of the social discriminations that lasted the longest time, since very ancient time until decades after the civil rights movement. Even the African Americans gained equal social rights earlier than women. But there is another view on this issue, that there was actually never so called “social discrimination” in our society; that since men and women are born different, they ought to take on different role in a family, that is men make sure there’s enough food and shelter to support the family and women use these food and shelter to take care of the rest; the reason women’s role have greatly changed today is because technology (machines) have replaced women’s position in everyday life, so women started to have a life styles more and more similar to those of men.

[Anshul Shah]

I agree with Goldin that even in competitive markets, discrimination still remains even though it is not efficient. I feel that this discrimination is more a result of cultural factors instead of economic factors. The cultural beliefs are the first to put this discrimination into play, and that is why this continues as we have seen, even in a competitive market, which according to theory should push out this kind of inefficiency. However, this argument is from the firm's perspective. It is important to note, that even if a firm doesn't take part in any kind of discrimination, the customers of the firm can still have discriminatory beliefs and thus affect the business (profitability) of the firm. This again goes back to the point made that this kind of discrimination stems from cultural beliefs. Another interesting thing is that the gender gap never increased in a consistent up-trend. I find it interesting, as Goldin indicates, that different technologies emerging at different points in time had an impact on the gender of the worker.

[Anshul Shah]

I agree with Goldin that even in competitive markets, discrimination still remains even though it is not efficient. I feel that this discrimination is more a result of cultural factors instead of economic factors. The cultural beliefs are the first to put this discrimination into play, and that is why this continues as we have seen, even in a competitive market, which according to theory should push out this kind of inefficiency. However, this argument is from the firm's perspective. It is important to note, that even if a firm doesn't take part in any kind of discrimination, the customers of the firm can still have discriminatory beliefs and thus affect the business (profitability) of the firm. This again goes back to the point made that this kind of discrimination stems from cultural beliefs. Another interesting thing is that the gender gap never increased in a consistent up-trend. I find it interesting, as Goldin indicates, that different technologies emerging at different points in time had an impact on the gender of the worker.

[Anshul Shah]

I agree with Goldin that even in competitive markets, discrimination still remains even though it is not efficient. I feel that this discrimination is more a result of cultural factors instead of economic factors. The cultural beliefs are the first to put this discrimination into play, and that is why this continues as we have seen, even in a competitive market, which according to theory should push out this kind of inefficiency. However, this argument is from the firm's perspective. It is important to note, that even if a firm doesn't take part in any kind of discrimination, the customers of the firm can still have discriminatory beliefs and thus affect the business (profitability) of the firm. This again goes back to the point made that this kind of discrimination stems from cultural beliefs. Another interesting thing is that the gender gap never increased in a consistent up-trend. I find it interesting, as Goldin indicates, that different technologies emerging at different points in time had an impact on the gender of the worker.

[Anshul Shah]

I agree with Goldin that even in competitive markets, discrimination still remains even though it is not efficient. I feel that this discrimination is more a result of cultural factors instead of economic factors. The cultural beliefs are the first to put this discrimination into play, and that is why this continues as we have seen, even in a competitive market, which according to theory should push out this kind of inefficiency. However, this argument is from the firm's perspective. It is important to note, that even if a firm doesn't take part in any kind of discrimination, the customers of the firm can still have discriminatory beliefs and thus affect the business (profitability) of the firm. This again goes back to the point made that this kind of discrimination stems from cultural beliefs. Another interesting thing is that the gender gap never increased in a consistent up-trend. I find it interesting, as Goldin indicates, that different technologies emerging at different points in time had an impact on the gender of the worker.

[Anshul Shah]

I agree with Goldin that even in competitive markets, discrimination still remains even though it is not efficient. I feel that this discrimination is more a result of cultural factors instead of economic factors. The cultural beliefs are the first to put this discrimination into play, and that is why this continues as we have seen, even in a competitive market, which according to theory should push out this kind of inefficiency. However, this argument is from the firm's perspective. It is important to note, that even if a firm doesn't take part in any kind of discrimination, the customers of the firm can still have discriminatory beliefs and thus affect the business (profitability) of the firm. This again goes back to the point made that this kind of discrimination stems from cultural beliefs. Another interesting thing is that the gender gap never increased in a consistent up-trend. I find it interesting, as Goldin indicates, that different technologies emerging at different points in time had an impact on the gender of the worker.

[Tanya Malik]

In his article, Understanding the Gender Gap: A review Article, Gavin Wright analyzes economist Claudia Goldin’s book about the discriminations against women throughout the years. In my opinion this was a thorough and well written analysis. A main point that he discusses that I thought was interesting is that employers try not to employ married women based on old social ideologies of the roles of women and how they should stay in the house and tend to rearing children and maintain the household. Another interesting, and somewhat ironic point that I took away form this article is that if wages are based on performance in school, because education is regarded so highly is the United States, and if woman are better in school than men, then shouldn’t woman have hire wages? Something to think about. Because this fight against wage discrimination relatively new for women, I feel that there is still a ways to go before full equality is reached.