ABSTRACT
The results of Chapter III bring to light two important facts: that the recorded participation rate of married women differed drastically by race around the tum of the century and that rates of male selfemployment did as well. These findings, taken together, may provide the answer to a question that has eluded labor economists for decades. That is, what is the reason for the large and unexplained racial gap in married women's labor force participation before 1940? In this chapter, I propose that the answer to this question lies in the discovery of a large number of white women who were left out of census employment statistics when in fact they performed work for their self-employed husbands. I investigate this possibility in detail by examining the racial components of the labor supply decision.
