How Race and Unemployment Shape Labor Market Opportunities: Additive, Amplified, or Muted Effects?

• In Event: 517 - Section on Organizations, Occupations and Work Paper Sessions. Race and Ethnicity in Organizations and Markets

Abstract

The manner in which social categories combine to produce inequality lies at the heart of scholarship on social stratification. Yet, knowledge about the causal effects of multi-category membership remains limited. Addressing key limitations in this area, this article advances a “muted congruence” theoretical framework, arguing that when individuals evaluate others that occupy multiple social positions about which stereotypes are highly congruent – for example, being black and being unemployed – the additional category membership will have limited influence over the ultimate evaluation. I test this argument using evidence from three studies examining how race and unemployment jointly shape workers’ labor market opportunities. First, I analyze data from an experimental audit study of job openings to generate causal estimates of how these categories shape actual hiring decisions. Second, I present evidence from a survey experiment addressing how overlapping stereotypes about these social groups drive applicant evaluations. Finally, I explore whether the experimental findings are consistent with observational evidence from a national survey of displaced workers. Together, the three studies support the “muted congruence” theoretical argument. While racial discrimination is prominent, the effects of unemployment are less severe for African Americans than whites. I conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for understanding the aggregation of social categories in the production of inequality.

Author

• David Pedulla, Stanford University