The Historical Evolution of the Female Labor Force in America, 1790 to 1985

该项目继续进行一系列研究，重点是从1790年到现在美国女性参与劳动力的演变。这位研究人员在前一届NSF奖下发表了9篇论文，着眼于劳动力中女性的各个方面。特别是，在过去两个世纪中，妇女更多地参与劳动力大军，这在很大程度上可以解释为工作选择的扩大，获得技能的成本降低，以及恢复常识的增加。此外，还构建了一些关于女性劳动力参与率、收入、职业、工作经验、教育程度和工作时间的数据集。该项目的目的是完成一本关于劳动力中妇女的演变的专著，并继续就经济中的性别差异这一主题对四个不同的主题进行研究。这四个主题是：(1)开发关于劳动力参与率、职业和工作时间的长期数据系列；(2)分析和解释性别收入差距；(3)分析收入和职业中的性别歧视，包括直接检验贝克尔歧视模型；(4)分析保护性劳动立法对女性就业的影响。这项研究很重要，因为它将更深入地了解妇女在市场经济中不断变化的角色，以及职业和收入方面性别差异的根源和原因。

This project continues a line of research focusing on the evolution of female participation in the labor force in the United State from 1790 to the present. The investigator has produced nine papers under the previous NSF award looking at various aspects of women in the work force. In particular, the increased participation of women in the work force over the past two centuries can be explained, in large measure, by the expanding menu of jobs, a decreased cost of acquiring skills, and a rise in the return to general knowledge. In addition, a number of data sets were constructed on female labor-force participation rates, earnings, occupations, job experience, education, and hours worked. The purpose of this project is to complete a monograph on the evolution of women in the labor force, and to continue research on four different topics on the subject of gender differences in the economy. The four topics are: (1) Develop a long-run data series on labor-force participation rates, occupations, and hours worked; (2) Analyze and explain the gender earnings-gap; (3) Analyze sex discrimination in earnings and occupations, including testing directly the Becker model of discrimination; (4) Analyze the effects of protective labor legislation on female employment. This research is important because it will provide a deeper understanding of the changing role of women in the market economy and the origin and causes of gender differences in terms of occupations and earnings.