What Progress? Race and Gender Inequality in Management by Sector of Employment, 1980-2010

• In Event: 256 - Section on Organizations, Occupations and Work Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 21. Gender and Work II

Abstract

Trends towards gender equality slowed in the 1990s and advancement for Blacks in the U.S. labor force largely stalled in the 1980s, yet progress towards race and gender equity in management is less well understood. Given the importance of organizational leadership for influencing ascriptive inequality in the workplace, this study offers a systematic analysis of changes in the status of Black men and women and White women in management from 1980 to 2010 using U.S. Decennial Census data from 1980 to 2000 and American Community Survey data from 2006-20011. Because few studies have examined the intersection of race and gender inequality in the workplace across sectors of employment, I examine both relative access to managerial jobs, and relative earnings within them, separately by sector. I find that while Black and White women made significant strides into management, particularly in the public sector, and the gender earnings gap decreased in both sectors in the 1980s and 1990s, progress thereafter has been limited and no real progress was made in the 2000s. However, despite tremendous strides during the 1960s and 1970s, progress towards increased access to management and greater financial compensation within management stalled for Black men in the entire period under study.

Author

• Moriah Wren Willow, University of Maryland