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Minimum wage effects by gender

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Abstract

Recent criticisms have led some to dismiss time-series analyses in the debate over the minimum wage. We investigate previous time-series studies showing that raising the minimum wage has a smaller impact on females than males. We reanalyze the data in light of recent developments in time-series methods and find that the minimum wage has a similar significant negative impact on both males and females. We conclude that, following a 10 percent increase in the minimum wage, both male and female employment drops from between 2 and 4 percent over a two-year period. This employment decrease slowly erodes as economic growth and inflation cause the minimum wage to fall below the market-clearing wage.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Cincinnati, 45221, Cincinnati, OH

    Nicolas Williams & Jeffrey A. Mills

Authors
  1. Nicolas Williams
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  2. Jeffrey A. Mills
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Additional information

We thank David Card and Alan Krueger for generously providing the data.

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Williams, N., Mills, J.A. Minimum wage effects by gender. J Labor Res 19, 397–414 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12122-998-1022-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12122-998-1022-2

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