We identify three implicit wage theories in U.S. debates over the principle of equal pay for equal work: wages as a living , wages as a price , and wages as a social practice . Arguments for wages as a living emphasize that the purpose of the wage is to provide an adequate level of support for...

We examine two key US labor market policies: state-level minimum wages for women from 1912-23 and the federal minimum wage established under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. Each of these regulations implicitly defined which groups were and were not expected to conform to the hegemonic male...

Establishment data from New York and Ohio, two U.S. states representing mature versus dynamic industrial sectors, are used to decompose changes in women's employment during economic fluctuations in the 1920s and 1930s. By decomposing changes in women's employment, one can distinguish between...