The extraordinary unemployment rates of black women during the Great Depression caused a sizeable number to leave the labor force as "discouraged workers." Consequently, while married white women entered the labor force in increasing numbers, the participation rate of married black women...

Census data show that the ratio of black to white unemployment rates, currently in excess of 2:1, was small or non-existent before 1940, widened dramatically during the 1940s and 1950s, and widened again in the 1980s. The authors decompose changes in the unemployment gap over the years 1880-1990...