Ethnic Discrimination and Women's Wages in Milwaukee Laundries, 1911-12

Abstract

The extent to which ethnic discrimination affected the employment opportunities of immigrants at the turn of the century is a topic of continuing interest to economic historians. While some studies find that immigrants did experience occupational crowding, the evidence regarding the general labor market impact of ethnic discrimination prior to World War I is mixed. This paper extends the analysis of the immigrant assimilation process in large city labor markets by an examination of the determinants of wage rates paid to native and foreign-born women working in Milwaukee power laundries in 1911-12. We find that ethnic identity was not an important wage determinant in this group of workers.Discrimination; Women