A recent article in this Review by Joan Haworth, James Gwartney, and Charles Haworth (hereafter H-G-H) presented some significant findings on the source and structure of improvements in the relative economic status of nonwhite males during the 1960's. Specifically, H-G-H concluded that approximately one-half of the increase in the nonwhite/white earnings ratio (NWER) during the 1960's was simply . . attributable to the exiting of older nonwhite workers with low relative earnings combined with the entry of younger, better-prepared nonwhites who have high relative earnings' (p. 167). The balance of the gain in relative nonwhite earnings was the result of a decline in employment discrimination against nonwhites and improvements in the relative productivity of nonwhites. If correct, these findings have several important implications for the prospect of black and white earnings equality. First, they suggest that the effects of past discriminatory practices in both employment and the acquisition of human capital continue to reduce the earnings power of older black males still in the labor force. These past practices are an important source of current differences in the average earnings of blacks and whites in aggregate. Hence, they constrain the success of policies to achieve racial earnings equality. This brief note presents some additional evidence consistent with the H-G-H conclusions. We are mainly concerned with their data in Table 3 (p. 164) on changes in the NWER within age cohorts between 1959 and 1969. The H-G-H hypothetical identical productivity' ' NWER measures the nonwhite-white earnings gap caused by factors other than measured productivity variables, such as racial differences in occupational structure which are unrelated to productivity differences. Since the relative occupational distributions indirectly revealed by these hypothetical NWER underlie some of the major H-G-H conclusions, a more direct examination of changes in the occupational distribution of blacks and whites during the 1960's may prove a useful check on their findings. A group's index of occupational status can be calculated by weighting the proportion of the group employed in an occupation by the mean earnings for the occupation and summing across major occupational categories.' The higher (lower) a group's index, the greater the proportion of the group in higher (lower) paying occupations. Therefore, the ratio of nonwhite to white occupational status (NWOS) will measure solely racial differences in the distribution of workers among occupations. The higher (lower) the NWOS, the more (less) favorable the occupational structure of blacks relative to whites, ceteris paribus. Estimates of the male NWOS for age cohorts in 1959 and 1969 are presented in Table 1, along with the corresponding NWER.2 In aggregate, the NWOS increased by 10.2 percent during the

THE large increase in the labor force participation of women during recent times has been accompanied by a less-noted but also important change in their employment picture-the growth of part-week work.' While the participation rate of women was increasing from 37% in 1957 to 49% in 1977, the percentage of female employment in part-week jobs was rising from 20% to 27% (U.S. Office of the President, 1970, 1978).2 Economists have linked these changes to both the secular rise of the unemployment rate in the United States and the differential between female and male unemployment (Friedman, 1977; Niemi, 1974; Perry, 1970). For example, Friedman states

In this paper the labor force entry and exit by married women are examined using longitudinal data that enable one to observe actual changes in economic behavior and characteristics. The symmetry assumption is investigated by estimating separate equations for the entry and exit choice. Section II briefly analyzes the wifes labor supply decision and discusses the issue of symmetry. The data and analytical procedure are described in section III and the empirical results are presented in section IV. Some implications of our findings are presented in section V. (excerpt)

The distribution of income in the urban context has received relatively little attention from economists. Limited information has been employed to assert an inverse relationship between city size and income inequality (Duncan and Reiss, 1956; Richardson, 1973). This relationship can be rationalized by the fact that both city size and inequality are related to the level of income. Kuznets (1955) hypothesized a negative relationship between income and inequality, and he is supported by the findings of Aigner and Heins (1967), Conlisk (1967), and Al-Samarrie and Miller (1967) using state data and by Frech and Burns (1971) using SMSA data. Sveikauskas (1975) has documented that incomes are higher in larger cities. In this paper we analyze the relationship between city size and income inequality. After controlling for other factors that influence income inequality by using regression analysis on cross section data for 79 U.S. metropolitan areas, we find that income inequality appears to increase with city size.

Males who participated in intercollegiate athletics are estimated to receive 4 percent higher annual incomes than similar nonathletes. No such income premium associated with college athletics is revealed among females. Both male and female athletes who attended colleges and universities in the early 1970s had higher graduation rates than other students. Since the models used to estimate income and graduation differentials included many measurable determinants of labor market and academic outcomes, these findings suggest that athletic participation may enhance the development of discipline, confidence, motivation, a competitive spirit, or other subjective traits that encourage success.

D RAMATIC changes in the division of labor compensation between wage and nonwage payments have occurred since World War II. Voluntary employer contributions to private pension and welfare funds have risen from 1.2% of wage and salary compensation in 1947 to 8.3% in 1979, with half the increase taking place since 1969 (see table 1). Major changes in the composition of the fringe benefit package have also taken place during this period. Employer contributions to group health insurance plans have risen from 24% of total fringe benefits in 1947 to 40%o in 1979. If this growth continues, group health insurance will replace pension and profit-sharing plans as the largest fringe benefit expenditure by employers. These trends in the compensation mix have long been noted by researchers and various factors have been offered as explanations, including the favorable tax treatment of fringe benefits, demographic changes such as increased life expectancy, and unionization (Rice, 1966; Ture, 1976; Mabry, 1973; Freeman, 1978). However, most explanations have not been subjected to rigorous empirical testing and the few results that have been published are both questionable and dated. For example, Rice (1966) estimated that changes in the tax rate structure had little influence on the relative increase in fringe benefits from World War II to 1963.' More recent studies (Schiller and Weiss, 1979, 1980) have examined a specific fringe benefit the private pension plan for its impact on turnover and its role as an 'equalizing difference, but these studies have not analyzed the determinants of the compensation mix. This paper discusses the theoretical determinants of the division of labor compensation between fringe benefits and cash income and empirically estimates their importance. It concentrates on the impact of taxation on the compensation mix for several reasons. First, the assumption that rising tax rates encourage individuals to substitute fringe benefits for cash income underlies estimates of the welfare cost of tax preferences (Browning, 1979). Second, proposals to fully tax employee fringe benefits under a comprehensive9' income tax have surfaced in recent years (Nolan, 1977; Clotfelter, 1979). Finally, current federal tax policy is calling for large tax rate reductions to increase supply incentives. Unlike the determinants of the compensation mix that change slowly over time, such as life expectancy, tax rate changes can occur rapidly through legislative action. Reducing tax rates might enlarge the tax base by increasing the fraction of labor income received as taxable cash wages and salaries. Section II outlines the tax treatment of various forms of labor compensation, and in section III other factors thought to influence the choice between wage and nonwage compensation are discussed. Empirical analyses of the compensation mix are presented in section IV. A brief summary and implications of the major findings for the future growth of fringe benefits follow in section V.