Getting a Good Job: Mobility in a Segmented Labor Market

This study examines the process by which men in three ethnic neighborhoods of Boston move from secondary to primary employment in a segmented labor market. Workers who successfully make this transition belong to neighborhood-based social groups that have customary linkages to particular primary jobs. Members of such groups costlessly learn how to perceive and act in the labor market in ways that faciliate their entry into the primary sector. Workers' labor market perceptions reflect objective characteristics of the primary jobs to which their social groups are linked.