Continuities in Sociological Human Ecology pp 317-344 | Cite as
Ecological and Structural Determinants of Declining Labor Force Participation of African-American Men
Abstract
Many studies have reported increasing equality in occupation and income attainments for employed white and African-American men in the United States since 1940 (e.g., Siegel 1967; Johnson and Sell 1978; Fossett, Galle, and Kelly 1986; Farley 1985; National Research Council 1989; Farley and Allen 1987; Smith and Welch 1984, 1986).2 One should view these findings cautiously, however, because most of the studies confined their analyses to aggregate outcomes. Recent research suggests that national-level analyses of employed men may lead to overly optimistic conclusions about trends in racial differences in labor force outcomes. Indeed, increased racial equality of labor force outcomes in the United States is likely to be more modest or even nonexistent: (a) when racial comparisons are of employment and amount of labor force participation instead of occupation and income and (b) when the data represent lower levels of aggregation than the nation as a whole.
Keywords
Labor Force Labor Force Participation Labor Demand Female Labor Labor Force Participation RatePreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
- Burr, Jeffrey A., Fossett, Mark A., and Galle, Omer R. (1991). Racial occupational inequality in southern metropolitan areas 1940-1980: Revisiting the visibility-discrimination hypothesis. Social Forces, 69, 831 - 850.Google Scholar
- Cotton, Jeremiah. (1989). Opening the gap: The decline in blacks’ economic indicators in the 1980s. Social Science Quarterly, 70, 803 - 819.Google Scholar
- Farley, Reynolds, and Allen, Walter R. (1987). The color line and the quality of life in America. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
- Farley, Reynolds. (1984). Blacks and whites: Narrowing the gap? Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
- Fossett, Mark A. (1988). Community-level analyses of racial socioeconomic inequality: A cautionary note. Sociological Methods and Research, 16, 454 - 491.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Fossett, Mark A. (1992). Structural determinants of declining labor force participation of black men: evidence from southern nonmetropolitan labor markets, 1940-1980, Report II, Number I V. College Station, TX: Texas AandM University Race and Ethnic Studies Institute Research and Policy Series.Google Scholar
- Fossett, Mark A, and Cready, Cynthia M. (1993). Assessing the role of compositional differences in comparative analyses of inequality. Austin, TX: Texas Population Research Center Paper No. 13. 16.Google Scholar
- Fossett, Mark A., and Stafford, M. Therese. (1992). Structural determinants of race-based inequality in southern nonmetropolitan areas, 1940-1980. Report to the Ford Foundation and Aspen Institute.Google Scholar
- Fossett, Mark A., and Seibert, M. Therese. (Forthcoming). Long time coming: Racial inequality in southern nonmetropolitan areas, 1940-1990.Google Scholar
- Boulder, CO: Westview. Fossett, Mark A., Galle, Omer R., and Burr, Jeffrey A. (1989). Racial occupational inequality, 1940-1980: A research note on the impact of the changing regional distribution of the black population. Social Forces, 68, 415 - 427.Google Scholar
- Fossett, Mark A., Galle, Omer R., and Kelly, William R. (1986). Racial occupational inequality, 1940-1980: National and regional trends. American Sociological Review, 51, 421 - 429.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Hamilton, Lawrence C. (1992). Regression with graphics: A second course in applied statistics. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole Publishing.Google Scholar
- Jencks, Christopher. (1992). Rethinking social policy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
- Johnson, Michael P., and Sell, Ralph R. (1976). The cost of being black: A 1970 update. American Journal of Sociology, 82, 183 - 190.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Kasarda, John D. (1985). Urban change and minority opportunities. In P. Peterson (Ed.), The new urban reality (pp. 33 - 67 ). Washington, DC: Brookings Institute.Google Scholar
- Kasarda, John D. (1989). Urban industrial transition and the underclass. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 501, 26 - 47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Kirschenman, Joleen, and Neckerman, Kathryn M. (1991). ‘We’d love to hire them, but...’: The meaning of race for employers. In Christopher Jencks and Paul E. Peterson (Eds.), The urban underclass (pp. 203 - 232 ). Washington, DC: Brookings Institute.Google Scholar
- National Research Council. (1989). Gerald David Jaynes and Robin M. Williams, Jr. (Eds.), A common destiny: Blacks and American society. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.Google Scholar
- Oppenheimer, Valerie K. (1970). The female labor force in the United States: Demographic and economic factors governing its growth and changing composition, Population Monograph Series, No. 5. Berkeley, CA.Google Scholar
- Poston, Dudley L., Jr., and White, Ralph. (1978). Indigenous labor supply, sustenance organization, and population redistribution in nonmetropolitan America: An extension of the ecological theory of migration. Demography, 15, 637 - 641.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Siegel, Paul M. (1965). On the cost of being a Negro. Sociological Inquiry, 35, 41 - 57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Smith, James P., and Welch, Finis R. (1986). Closing the gap: Forty years of economic progress for blacks. Santa Monica, CA: The Rand Corporation.Google Scholar
- Smith, James P., and Welch, Finis R. (1989). Black economic progress after Myrdal. Journal of Economic Literature, 27, 519 - 564.Google Scholar
- Staples, Robert. (1985). Changes in black family structure: The conflict between family ideology and structural conditions. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 47, 1005 - 1013.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Szymanski, Albert. (1976). Racism and sexism as functional substitutes in the labor market. Sociological Quarterly, 17, 65 - 73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Villemez, Wayne J. (1977). The functional substitutability of blacks and females in the labor market: A closer look. Sociological Quarterly, 18, 548 - 563.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Wilson, William J. (1987). The truly disadvantaged: The inner city, the underclass, and public policy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar