The February review

Monthly Labor Review, Feb, 2007

This issue leads off with a detailed case study of a "community in which 80 percent of women are college educated, work in the professions, delay marriage and childbearing until their late twenties, and return to work within a few years of childbirth." No, it is not the typical suburban, dual-income community of today, but an upper middle class Black group from Baltimore in the 1960s. Author Ruth B. McKay concludes by observing that by the later years of the 20th century, "white women achieved greater educational, occupational, and economic parity with men" and so came to resemble, in household roles, fertility patterns, and child-rearing practices, those African-American mothers of mid-century Baltimore.

One of the striking features of late-20th-century labor markets was the rise in labor force participation among mothers of young children. Sharon R. Cohany and Emy Sok report on the evidence that labor force participation rates for married mothers of infants edged down in the last few years of the last century, and have been basically flat since.

Ana Aizcorbe uses detailed data from the Consumer Price Index and Producer Price Index in a demand model for Japanese motor cars. Aizcorbe uses the model to assess the effectiveness of Japan's automotive export restraints before and after the yen's exchange value for the dollar increased sharply in the middle years of the 1980s.

Jessica R. Sincavage reviews some international comparisons of consumer price indexes that have been "harmonized" as to coverage and methodology.