Using Establishment Size to Measure the Impact of Title VII and Affirmative Action

Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and Affirmative Action apply most forcefully to large employers. The laws' focus on large employers implies that if Title VII and Affirmative Action were effective, then large employers should have increased their relative employment of blacks and women in the years following their institution. We show blacks and women did, in fact, move to larger employers after 1964. We also estimate that the move to large employers accounted for roughly 15 percent of aggregate black/white wage convergence over the 1965-80 period. Thus, whatever, its cause, blacks' movement to large employers was an important part of black economic progress after 1964.