Racial Group Differences in the Impact of Hiring, Firing, and Promotion Discrimination on Mental Health

• In Event: 1184 - Section on Organizations, Occupations, and Work Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 17. Race and Ethnicity at Work

Abstract

The primary goal of this research is to explore the relationship between three distinct forms of workforce discrimination, hiring, firing, and in promotions, and self-reported mental health in an effort to determine if different yet similarly discriminatory acts produce significant mental health consequences. As sites of social reproduction, metropolitan areas are easily described in terms of segmentation. Work is a critical institution in the reinforcement of social boundaries. As a human-generated institution, work and the action of working function as additional means of social control. By comparing the relationship between mental health and experiences of workforce discrimination across three racial groups- whites, Blacks, and Hispanics- the present research seeks to explore what differences, if any, exist between races in mental health responses to instances of institutional discrimination. The findings indicate that where African Americans have no significant mental health outcomes in regards to experiencing these types of workforce discrimination, whites see significantly negative mental health outcomes across all three discrimination types, with Hispanics being negatively impacted only by hiring and promotion discrimination. These findings indicate that in the context of work, groups in positions of relative advantage within the labor queue are less primed to expect discrimination than others, to the detriment of their mental health.

Author

• Megan Robinson, Vanderbilt University