Race, Place, and Job Leads Received through Networks: The Role of Diversity in Urban Contexts

• In Event: 478 - Section on Economic Sociology Paper Session. Getting a Job - 40 Years Later: Advances in Labor Markets and Networks Research (co-sponsored with Section on Organizations, Occupation and Work)

Abstract

How is racial diversity of place and occupation associated with access to informal job finding assistance? We rely on survey data on the receipt of unsolicited job leads in the 24 largest cities in the United States, which have been linked to Census data on urban diversity as well as EEO-1 reports on occupational race composition from employers. The results from logistic regression analyses suggest that diversity per se is not associated with informal access to job leads, but particularistic forms of diversity are. At the city level, access to job leads for Latina/os is greatest in Latina/o cities—consistent with research on Latina/o enclaves. At the occupation level, access to job leads decreases as the percentage of non-whites in urban occupational settings increases—consistent predictions from social closure theory. The findings therefore reveal how network-based information exchange is embedded in and perhaps influenced by the race context of cities and occupational fields.

Authors

• Lindsay Hamm, North Carolina State University

• Steve McDonald, North Carolina State University

• James R. Elliott, University of Oregon