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Wage Discrimination and Occupational Crowding in a Competitive Industry: Evidence from the American Whaling Industry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Lee A. Craig  and
Robert M. Fearn
Lee A. Craig
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of Economics, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695-7506
Robert M. Fearn
Affiliation:
Professor of Economics, North Carolina State University.
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Abstract

We test for wage discrimination and occupational crowding in the nineteenthcentury American whaling industry. Although our results indicate little evidence of wage discrimination, we cannot reject the hypothesis that certain groups—specifically blacks and Portuguese–experienced some occupational crowding, though it was by no means complete and the minority-dominated occupations were not low-paying ones. In addition, we find that members of the majority group—white American and Northern European seamen—did accept a negative compensating wage differential for working with members of their own group.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 53 , Issue 1 , March 1993 , pp. 123 - 138
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1993

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