Latinas in the Twenty-first Century: Issues of Jobs, Earnings and Politics

• In Event: Race, Class, and Gender

Abstract

In an age when the intersections of race, ethnicity and gender are much discussed within (but rarely across) social science disciplines, it is frustrating that so little attention has been directed to Latinas. Currently we have only the sketchiest of information about the ethnic composition, geographic distribution, family patterns, economic standing and political activity of Hispanic women. The first part of this paper provides a national picture of these matters for Latinas and comparable data for white and African American women.
The second part of this paper is designed to open up a dialogue about the causes and consequences of Hispanic women’s work and political standing, which is lower than that of Black women and white women, and typically much lower than that of men from any group. Women’s share of state legislature seats, adjusted for their share of the state’s population, is the chief outcome variable. While the picture has become somewhat blurrier very recently, at the beginning of the 21st century the patterns for Latinas differed radically from those of white women and black women. The higher the education, earnings, and placement in managerial and professional occupations, the higher women’s representation in the state’s legislature, for other groups but not for Latinas. As well, the larger white men’s share of state legislative seats the lower the representation of white women and Black women, but not Latinas. The quite varied patterns across different race and ethnic groups are difficult to interpret, but they show quite clearly that meaningful results cannot be obtained when Latinas are lumped together with other minority groups.

Authors

• Ray Darville, Stephen F. Austin State University

• Elizabeth McTaggart Esterchild, University of North Texas