Race, Voluntary Turnover, and the History of Place

• In Event: Organizations, Occupations, and Work Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Table 20: Race, Migration, and Work

Abstract

This paper examines how historically racialized geographies shape contemporary workplace attachment, extending organizational inequality research beyond the boundaries of the firm. While organizational sociology has demonstrated how internal allocation processes reproduce racial inequality, less attention has been paid to how spatial and historical conditions external to organizations structure employees’ labor market behavior. We argue that where workers live—within geographies shaped by past and present racialized housing policies—conditions their ability to sustain attachment to work organizations.

Focusing on Emergency Medical Service (EMS) workers employed by the Fire Department of the City of New York in New York City, we analyze how race and place intersect to pattern voluntary and involuntary turnover. Drawing on longitudinal administrative data spanning 37 years (9,518 workers), we examine how commute distance and travel time relate to organizational attachment across racial groups. We situate these patterns within the enduring spatial consequences of racialized housing policies, including redlining practices associated with the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation, which continue to structure neighborhood investment, mobility, and daily life.

Our preliminary findings indicate that geographic proximity matters differently by race. African American EMS workers are substantially more likely to voluntarily exit employment as commute distance increases, while white workers’ attachment remains relatively stable across space. These patterns suggest that place-based constraints—such as transportation burdens, neighborhood infrastructure, and uneven access to resources—interact with racial position to shape labor market trajectories.

By linking historical geographies of inequality to contemporary organizational outcomes, this paper contributes to social geographies scholarship that centers race, space, and positionality across time. We demonstrate how the “where” of workers’ lives—rooted in past racial projects—continues to shape the “how” and “whether” of their employment, connecting micro-level job decisions to macro-level spatial inequality.

Authors

• Jennifer Dudley, Columbia University

• Adina Sterling, Columbia University

• Gabrielle Lamont-Dobbin, Columbia University