Accumulating disadvantage: The growth in the black-white wage gap among women

Between 1980 and 2002, the black-white wage gap among women tripled, climbing steadily despite improving economic conditions in the 1990s. Relative distribution analysis shows an increasingly dense accumulation of black women's wages in the lowest deciles of white women's wage distribution over time. Although the transition to an "office economy" rewarded both black and white women with wage gains, white women reaped greater benefits. During the 1990s, black managers and professionals lost ground relative to white women, but also relative to other black women workers. Regardless of the economic climate, then, black women accumulated disadvantage, suffering most in the chilly economic climate of the 1980s, and benefiting least during the economic expansion of the 1990s. © 2010 Springer Science + Business Media, LLC.