Comment on Szymanski's “Racism and Sexism as Functional Substitutes in the Labor Market”

Abstract

Evidence has recently been presented by Szymanski (1976) showing that racial differences in income are inversely related to sexual differences in income. It appears that women and racial minorities serve as alternative, rather than co-existent, sources of cheap labor. In Szymanski's analysis, these differences held up even under important statistical controls. However, the units of analysis in the original study were the 50 states, and the author specifically welcomed attempts to replicate his results using SMSAs instead. States include a great diversity of economic areas, but they are not true labor markets. This note reports a replication of Szymanski's tables using data from the 124 largest Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas (SMSAs)1 While the original study was meant to describe labor market conditions in the entire United States, this replication applies only to metropolitan areas. The two sets of findings are equally reliable, but we will argue that the SMSA analysis is of greater validity.