A Note on the Analysis of Male-Female Income Differences.

A survey was conducted of Michigan teachers salaries and efforts were made to draw conclusion from the analysis of the data. The authors believe that the implications for the pursuit of research on race and sex discrimination in market earnings are serious and complex. The Michigan teacher salary study is far better than data bases for most sex discrimination studies. Given the richness of the data, a conclusion that women teachers receive less pay for comparable work would have seemed quite reasonable yet the results for San Diego teachers, suggest that this is probably not true. They also suggest something more important: Without far better information on such personal characteristics as schooling received, on-the-job training, and actual work experience, or more sophisticated statistical techniques, economists stand little chance of isolating the true effects of racial and sex discrimination on market earnings using hedonic wage equations.