Particularistic Mobility and Racialized Glass Ceilings

• In Event: 1483 - Open Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 09. Shatterproof Glass Ceilings: Race, Gender, and Employment Inequality

Abstract

Examinations of the “particularistic mobility thesis” have focused on a narrow range of occupational destinations and not considered hierarchical aspects—such as the presence of a racialized “glass ceiling”—in mobility dynamics. We assess these shortcomings in examining African American/White men’s differences in the incidence and determinants of mobility into four white-collar and blue-collar privileged occupational destinations. Findings from a 2009-2014 Panel Study of Income Dynamics sample support broadening the scope of theory. Specifically, across all destinations African Americans, relative to, Whites, have low rates of mobility, disproportionately rely on a mobility route that is formal and structured by a traditional range of stratification-based causal factors, and, finally, a racialized glass ceiling in mobility prospects emerges across destinations based on increases in income as well as supervisory authority. Additional analyses indicate that particularistic-based racial inequities are pronounced in the private sector though a racialized glass ceiling is found in both private and public sectors.
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Authors

• George Wilson, University of Miami

• David J. Maume, University of Cincinnati

• Ryan Smith, City University of New York-Baruch College