2025/12/08 by Rowena Gray, Siobhan O’Keefe, Sarah Quincy +1 · 1 voice
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Social Sciences · #Culture, Economy, and Development Studies #Intergenerational and Educational Inequality Studies #Labor market dynamics and wage inequality
paper · doi:10.3368/jhr.0524-13615r1
openalex created_date 2025/12/08 · openalex publication_date 2025/12/08 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
<h3>Abstract</h3> We present new evidence on the long-run evolution of occupational task content by race in the United States, 1900-2021. Black workers began the transition to better paid, cognitiveintensive modern jobs at least a generation after white workers; substantial convergence only occurred after 1960. Longitudinal data suggests that task transitions were racially biased: Black men moved to jobs with lower rewarded task content than white men, conditional on initial tasks, though gaps decreased after 1940. Routine-intensive Black workers were less likely to move up into non-routine analytic work in all periods. The results suggest that task-displacement shocks widen Black-white inequality.