Assessing black progress: employment,occupation, earnings,income, poverty

Farley discusses changes in employment, occupation, earnings, income, and poverty among US blacks. Among black men, there has been a persistent rise in unemployment since 1960. By the early 1980s, 1 black man out of 8 had dropped out of the labor force, compared to 1 in 20 white men. Some contend that many black men lack the skills to be employed or have personal habits and criminal records which make them unacceptable to employers. Others believe that the expansion of federal welfare programs offers attractive alternatives to men who have limited earnings potential. Still others stress that blacks are concentrated within cities, while the growth of employment is occurring in suburbs. Among those blacks over age 54, labor force participation has declined because of improved Social Security benefits, better private pensions, and the greater availability of Supplemental Security Income. The employment of young blacks compared to whites has deteriorated since 1960. For both races, there has been a steady rise in the employment of women. The recent increases, however, have been great for whites. By the early 1980s, white women caught up with black women in terms of employment. Unlike the indicators of employment itself, there is unambiguous evidence that the occupational distribution of employed blacks has been upgraded and is gradually becoming similar to that of whites. Findings from many studies show that blacks once earned much less than similar whites, but this racial difference has declined among men and has nearly disappeared among women. The proportion of blacks impoverished fell sharply in the 1960s, reaching a minimum of 30% in the early 1970s. Since the early 1970s, blacks have made few gains. The proportion impoverished actually increased and the ratio of black-to-white family income declined. The fact that the earnings of black males are no longer rising faster than those of whites and that there is no longer a migration from southern farms to cities plays a role, but changes in family structure are also important. At all dates, poverty rates have been high and income levels low in families headed by women. In 1984, for example, 52% of the black families with a woman as head of household were below the poverty line, compared to 15% of the black married-couple families. While similar trends are occurring in white families, there has been a sharper increase in the proportion of blacks living in these female-maintained families which have high poverty rates.     

Black women and labor force participation: An analysis of sluggish growth rates

The labor force participation rate of black women has not increased as fast as that of white women in spite of the fact that black females have the characteristics economists have found most encourage participation. Also black women at all socioeconomic levels have more positive attitudes towards labor market activity. The explanation for the failure for their work rates to grow as fast as those of white women appears to be inadequate employment opportunities for black women from lower socioeconomic groups. Education in or of itself, however, is not the solution to the problem because education yields lower returns to black women with limited schooling than is true for comparable whites. Any strategy devised to solve these employment inequities must address the low relative demand for these workers.     

Employment implications of a changing health-care system

The American health-care system has undergone rapid growth and structural change over the past 20 years. Because of the increase in expenditures flowing into the system, total employment in the industry has increased significantly. Along with total employment, the employment of black women has also grown. Unfortunately, however, black women continue to be concentrated in the lowest paying of the health occupations. Efforts to improve the occupational distribution of blacks in general and black women in particular are going to be more difficult in the future because of the dominance of cost containment as the nations primary health policy goal.     

Comparable worth and its impact on black women

Comparable worth is a subset of affirmative action strategies that deal with all of the terms and conditions of employment including hiring, recruitment, promotion, transfer, and wages. This article describes the comparable worth strategy and its potential impact on black women, black men, and the black community. By viewing the representation of black women in municipal clerical jobs, the author concludes that black women will gain from comparable worth. Because black men are overrepresented in ℝdtypically female” jobs, it is further concluded that black males will gain from implementation of comparable worth. Finally, because comparable worth will examine the basis for pay scales, the author concludes that both gender and racial bias may be revealed when job evaluations are examined. This article also views limitations to the comparable worth strategy and distributional concerns of comparable worth.     

A simultaneous probit model of crime and employment for black and white teenage males

This study examines the relationships between the employability and criminality of white and black male teenagers. A disequilibrium model of employment and crime is formulated and estimated as a simultaneous probit equation system. Our results show that black teenagers who are employed engage in fewer criminal activities. Thus, it appears that blacks view employment and crime as alternative income-generating activities. On the other hand, the criminal behavior of white male teenagers is unaffected by their employment status. The evidence that we provide indicates that whites tend to use employment as a cover for crime or to moonlight in crime. The differences in the behaviors of whites and blacks can be explained, in part, by different legitimate opportunity structures for whites and blacks. One of the more important policy implications is that job opportunities targeted to high risk, black teenage populations will have the additional beneficial effect of reducing crime rates.     

The myth of the double-advantage: Black female managers

This article reports on interviews conducted with 25 middle- and senior-level black female managers in private-sector employment. Three hypotheses were examined: (1) the processes that sociologists and psychologists assume influence the nontraditional career choices of white women are not the same as those that influence black women; (2) contrary to popular belief, black women are not being promoted more rapidly than other, better qualified workers as a result of affirmative action; and (3) black female managers are likely to encounter the same limits to their mobility that anyone, regardless of race or gender, might encounter,and they are likely to encounter limits to their mobility on account of their race and sex. Each of these hypotheses received some support from this admittedly narrow database.     

Introduction to Articles on Black Women and Work

Black women are one of the hardest working groups in the country. However, hard work is not always properly rewarded. The existence of wage inequities based on race has been shown to exist (Darity The Journal of Human Resources XVII: 72–91 1982), and black women have not been exempt from its implications. In addition, African American women still experience higher unemployment levels than their white female counterparts. In papers examining black women in the nursing profession, their income and earnings volatility, and inequities in their employment, Richard McGregory, Bradley Hardy, and Linda Loubert provide an overview of where black women stand in the U.S. labor market with respect to work and earnings. While these pieces show that African American women have made significant inroads into the American labor market there is still further to go.     

The Plight of African American Women: Employed and Unemployed

Understanding employment for African American women through the lens of neoclassical economics may not be best to help understand their plight. Their pay and the available employment has not been equal to that of men and even more so, African American women have lower paying jobs compared to their white counterparts, despite their achievement of higher levels of education. This paper looks at unemployment rates across the nation and then centers the discussion on black women in the context of the disparities over the past three decades. It combines the types of employment and wages that they have endured in context to white women during the same period of time. It uses Geographical Information Systems to underscore the concentration of income and race and the types of employment in those areas. It then provides some policy recommendations for the future.     

Do black and white women hold different jobs in the same occupation? A critical analysis of the clerical and service sectors

Employing 1960 and 1981 census data at the three-digit level, the study finds that black and white women were employed at different jobs in the predominantly female clerical and service occupations in both 1960 and 1981. However, there appears to be a slight reduction in black female job dissimilarity with white females between 1960 and 1981 in both occupations. Moreover, while employment of black women, relative to white women, in 1960 was observed to be generally skewed toward the low-paying, low-status jobs in clerical and service occupations, there was little evidence of this trend by 1981. The present results, then, complement previous findings at the more aggregative two-digit level of black female occupational advancement since the mid-1960s.     

Black women’s labor market status: Occupational segregation in the United States and Great Britain

An initial exploration of the comparative labor market situation of black women in the United States and Great Britain reveals that race and gender play similar roles in allocating people among broad occupations in both nations despite differences in historical circumstances. However, a closer examination based upon measures of occupational segregation shows that labor market dynamics are quite different. Public employment and education do not reduce racial segregation in Britain as they do in the United States, and the immigrant status of many black Britons does not explain these differences. Only youth is associated with reduced segregation in both countries.     

Analysis of wage differentials by gender and ethnicity in the public sector

This study investigates the source of wage differentials between blacks, Hispanics, and whites, and between women and men, in metropolitan Dade County (Florida) government, and draws out the implications of this analysis for affirmative action planning. Our distinctive finding is that the primary factor causing observed wage differentials by ethnicity is the sorting of people across occupational categories. Wage decompositions reveal that for males, 70 percent, 88 percent, and 47 percent of the wage gaps between white and black, white and Hispanic, and Hispanic and black, respectively, are attributable to occupation. For females, the corresponding figures are 56 percent, 58 percent, and 51 percent. When comparing men and women of the same ethnic group, occupational employment patterns are found to be an important factor accounting for lower average female wages, yet within major occupational groups women seem to be receiving higher wages (on average) than men.     

A note on black-white wage disparity

Conclusion The evidence in this article helps to explain the black-white earnings differential in 1970, six years after the passage of Fair Employment Legislation, in terms of traditional measures such as experience and education along with a public policy measure that has of late come under fire. And contrary to the notion that the gains from such government policy have not benefited the less fortunate workers but simply accrued only, or mainly, to upper- or middle-class blacks, the results presented here indicate that enforcement, such as it is, has had beneficial effects for black men and women in virtually all major occupational categories. When a distinction is made between the various major occupational categories, the importance of education and experience as factors that contribute toward explaining black-white earnings differentials is generally supported by this study. However, neither education nor experience shows a consistent explanatory power across occupational categories and especially across the sexes. For example, experience is more frequently found to be a significant factor for black men than it is for black women. Education, on the other hand, was found to have no statistically significant relationship with wage differentials in major blue-collar job categories for both men and women, thus lending some credence to the dual labor market thesis regarding returns to education. By far the factor we have found to be the most consistent with respect to its impact upon racial wage differentials for both men and women is the fair employment variable. Indeed, across major occupational groups the existence and enforcement of fair employment laws seems to have had, generally, a more significant effect on reducing racial wage differentials than each of the other independent variables.     

Restless worlds of work,health and migration: domestic workers in Johannesburg

The lives of migrant women have generally received far less attention than those of their male counterparts. Similarly, male migrants have been the focus of research on the relationship between migration and HIV/AIDS. Little attention has been paid to the vulnerability of female migrants themselves to HIV infection and their access to health care and treatment. Domestic work is the second largest sector of employment for black women in South Africa, and the largest for black women in Johannesburg and, as this article shows, most of these workers are migrants. Based on a survey of 1100 domestic workers in Johannesburg, the article explores the lives of domestic workers, focusing on their experience as migrants, their working conditions, use of health-care services and knowledge of and possible vulnerability to HIV/AIDS.     

Labor market segmentation and relative black/white teenage birth rates

Teenage mothers typically have lower educational attainment than other women. Most observers have argued that this is a major reason for their greater risk of poverty. This article takes the opposite view: that circumstances associated with poverty contribute to a greater likelihood of teenage childbearing. In particular, poor educational quality and the chances of secondary sector employment are more common for black women, regardless of their age at first birth. Hence the payoffs to education may be quite low for these women, which may be the reason for early motherhood. This argument is presented in terms of segmented labor market theory. Data to support it is presented from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Other common explanations of teenage motherhood are critiqued.     

Arrival Cohort, Assimilation, and the Earnings of Caribbean Women in the United States

Utilizing data on U.S.-born and Caribbean-born black women from the 1980–2000 U.S. Censuses and the 2000–2007 waves of the American Community Survey, I document the impact of cohort of arrival, tenure of U.S. residence, and country/region of birth on the earnings and earnings assimilation of black women born in the English-, French-, and Spanish-speaking Caribbean. I also test whether selective migration accounts for earnings differences between U.S.-born and Caribbean-born black women in the United States. I show that almost all arrival cohorts of Caribbean women earn less than U.S.-born black women when they first arrive in the United States. However, over time the earnings of early arrival cohorts from the English- and French-speaking Caribbean are projected to surpass the earnings of U.S.-born black women. Indeed, this crossover is most pronounced for women from the English-speaking Caribbean. In models that account for selective migration by comparing the earnings of Caribbean women to U.S.-born black women who have moved across states since birth, I show that more time is required for early arrival cohorts from the English- and French-speaking Caribbean to surpass the earnings of U.S.-born black internal migrants. Women from the Spanish-speaking Caribbean do not seem to experience earnings growth as their tenure of U.S. residence increases. In summary, the findings suggest that selective migration is an important determinant of earnings differences between U.S.-born black women and black women from the Caribbean.     

The impact of demand management policies on black vs. white employment

This article uses vector autoregression analysis to examine the relative impacts on black and white employment growth of monetary and fiscal actions. It was found that the employment responses to anticipated policy actions, while significant, were generally short-lived, with the exception of the effects of anticipated money growth on white employment. The influences of unanticipated policy changes are of a longer duration. The predominant finding in which black employment growth responded differently from white employment growth was in response to a monetary shock. The black employment response was sharply negative while the white employment response was a gradual increase over nine quarters. The results indicate that this difference occurred only during the 1980s and not in the 1970s and suggests that the effects of bank failures and credit rationing during this period may have significantly hurt minority employment opportunities.     

JTPA,black employment,and occupational change: Separating out cyclical changes from program changes

Evidence from Bridgeport, Connecticut’s Job Training and Partnership Act program is examined to determine if black employment and the occupational distribution of jobs held by blacks has been affected. Historical employment data is used to illustrate the cyclical nature of employment growth. It is concluded that the increases in black employment over the first nine months of the program are only partially the result of program. A second conclusion is that the occupational distribution of jobs in the program does not differ from the distribution of jobs of blacks not in the program. A third conclusion is that the program is underfunded.     

Employment and Earnings: A Case Study of Urban Detroit

This paper investigates the roles of manufacturing employment, neighborhood poverty, and family structure in determining wages among Detroit, MI workers, just prior to the current economic crisis. Employment in manufacturing has been crucial for blacks and whites: 39% of black and of white men in the Detroit metropolitan area worked in manufacturing in 2000. Regression analysis in this paper estimates employment in manufacturing raised wages 15.8% for all workers in the metropolitan area, 24.4% for blacks and 13.8% for whites. It finds a higher wage penalty (4.7%) for blacks in non-manufacturing industries than is found when manufacturing sector jobs are included (2.6%). Wage returns to education were greater in the non-manufacturing employment sector, especially for blacks. Residence in the poorest central city neighborhoods reduced wages significantly for white manufacturing and non-manufacturing workers. Its coefficient was insignificant for black workers. Gender and marital status effects on wages differed between blacks and whites in magnitude: White women suffered a larger penalty for their sex than black women (22.6 versus 9.6%) yet black men enjoyed a greater return to marriage than white men (27.5 versus 25.0%). Controlling for manufacturing reduced the gender wage gap and the returns to marriage for men. These findings suggest greater accessibility for women; and lower returns to marriage in non-manufacturing sectors. Among employed blacks access to manufacturing jobs has been their main source of decent wages. The adverse effects of the industry??s job loss in the 1980s and 1990s impacted all Detroit residents. Other high wage industries have employed relatively few blacks, have not paid them well; and have suffered job loss and slow growth over the period. Education could have raised wages for non-manufacturing workers, but not as much as access to manufacturing jobs. Today as in 2000, Detroit??s residents desperately need job creation or relocation to the central city; and job training and anti-discrimination policy enforcement throughout the metro-area. All of these would be necessary to offset job loss and reduce inequality and poverty in Detroit. The extent to which blacks will benefit from 2010?C11 improvements in manufacturing employment in Detroit depends upon whether private companies and the state provide equal access to the jobs and the training new technologies require.     

COVID-19 and the employment gender gap in Japan

This paper examines how the COVID-19 pandemic affected female employment in Japan. Our estimates indicate that the employment rate of married women with children decreased by 3.5 percentage points, while that of those without children decreased by only 0.3 percentage points, implying that increased childcare responsibilities caused a sharp decline in mothers’ employment. Further, mothers who left or lost their jobs appear to have dropped out of the labor force even several months after school reopening. In contrast to women, the employment rate of married men with children was not affected, which hindered progress in narrowing the employment gender gap.     

Women “manufacture” economic spaces in Bethlehem

Education is an important factor in women's economic development. For Palestinian women, who may be denied access to wage labor because of societal conceptions of gender roles, education has added importance, since it increases women's ability to challenge these roles. This paper looks at differences in education and employment patterns between two groups of Palestinian women, refugees and nonrefugees, in the Bethlehem area, with the conclusion that while refugee women have made considerable gains in their education and employment options, nonrefugee women have lagged behind, and as a result have become relatively less economically powerful. A combination of social, economic and institutional factors have led to current education and employment patterns.