Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t8hqh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T03:33:27.407Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Inequality in the West

Racial and Ethnic Variation in Occupational Status and Returns to Education, 1940–2000

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Stewart E. Tolnay  and
Suzanne C. Eichenlaub
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The western region of the United States has exhibited racial and ethnic diversity that rivals that found in any other part of the country. Yet the socioeconomic differences among western racial and ethnic groups have been studied much less intensively than corresponding differences in other regions of the United States. In this article we use data from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series from 1940 through 2000 to describe the recent history of occupational inequality in the West. We find evidence of a persistent and significant occupational disadvantage for African Americans, Native Americans, and Mexicans. In contrast, the two Asian groups included in our analysis, Chinese and Japanese, frequently enjoyed an actual occupational advantage relative not only to other racial and ethnic minority groups but also to the majority native-born white population. Controlling for group differences in educational attainment explains much of the racial and ethnic variation in occupational inequality, but further analysis shows that it is inaccurate to assume that all groups enjoy the same occupational benefits from additional schooling. As a result, controlling for education without considering such differential occupational returns to schooling can yield a misleading picture of occupational inequality. Finally, we interpret these findings in relation to different theoretical perspectives on racial and ethnic inequality in the United States.

Type
Articles
Information
Social Science History , Volume 31 , Issue 4 , Winter 2007 , pp. 471 - 507
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association 2007 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adelman, Robert M., and Tolnay, Stewart E. (2003) “Occupational status of immigrants and African Americans at the beginning and end of the Great Migration.” Sociological Perspectives 46: 179–206.Google Scholar
Adelman, Robert M., Tsao, Hui-shien, and Tolnay, Stewart E. (2006) “Occupational disparity in a migrant metropolis: A case study of Atlanta.” Sociological Spectrum 26: 269–87.Google Scholar
Berry, Edwin C. (1945) “Profiles: Portland.” Journal of Educational Sociology 19: 158–65.Google Scholar
Bigham, Darrel E. (1987) We Ask Only a Fair Trial: A History of the Black Community of Evansville, Indiana. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Blau, Peter M., and Otis Dudley, Duncan (1967) The American Occupational Structure. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Bloom, Leonard, and Ruth, Riemer (1949) Removal and Return: The Socio-economic Effects of the War on Japanese Americans. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Bodnar, John, Simon, Roger, and Weber, Michael P. (1982) Lives of Their Own: Blacks, Italians, and Poles in Pittsburgh, 1900–1960. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Boyd, Robert L. (2001) “Ethnicity, niches, and retail enterprise in northern cities, 1900.” Sociological Perspectives 44: 89–110.Google Scholar
Bratt, Charles (1945) “Profiles: Los Angeles.” Journal of Educational Sociology 19: 179–86.Google Scholar
Broussard, Albert S. (1993) Black San Francisco: The Struggle for Racial Equality in the West, 1900–1954. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.Google Scholar
Campbell, Robert A. (1982) “Blacks and the coal mines of western Washington: 1888-1896.” Pacific Northwest Quarterly 73: 146–55.Google Scholar
Colbert, Robert E. (1946) “The attitudes of older Negro residents toward recent Negro migrants in the Pacific Northwest.” Journal of Negro Education 15: 695–703.Google Scholar
DeGraaf, Lawrence B. (1970) “The city of black angels: Emergence of the Los Angeles ghetto, 1890–1930.” Pacific Historical Review 39: 323–52.Google Scholar
DeGraaf, Lawrence B. (1996) “Significant steps on an arduous path: The impact of World War II on discrimination against African Americans in the West.” Journal of the West 35: 24–33.Google Scholar
Drake, St. Clair, and Cayton, Horace R. (1962) Black Metropolis: A Study of Negro Life in a Northern City. New York: Harcourt, Brace.Google Scholar
Duncan, Otis Dudley (1961) “A socioeconomic index for all occupations,” in Reiss, A. J. (ed.) Occupations and Social Status. New York: Free Press: 108–34.Google Scholar
Featherman, David L., and Hauser, Robert M. (1978) Opportunity and Change. New York: Academic.Google Scholar
Frazier, E. Franklin (1932) The Negro Family in Chicago. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Gamboa, Erasmo (1981) “Mexican migration into Washington State, 1940-1950.” Pacific Northwest Quarterly 72: 121–31.Google Scholar
Glazer, Nathan, and Daniel Patrick, Moynihan (1963) Beyond the Melting Pot: The Negroes, Puerto Ricans, Jews, Italians, and Irish of New York City. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Gottlieb, Peter (1987) Making Their Own Way: Southern Blacks' Migration to Pittsburgh, 1916–1930. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Grossman, James R. (1989) Land of Hope: Chicago, Black Southerners, and the Great Migration. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Heer, David (1996) Immigration in America's Future: Social Science Findings and the Policy Debate. Boulder, CO: Westview.Google Scholar
Higgs, Robert (1979) “The wealth of Japanese tenant farmers in California, 1909.” Agricultural History 53: 488–93.Google Scholar
Hirschman, Charles, and Ellen, Kraly (1990) “Racial and ethnic inequality in the United States, 1940 and 1950: The impact of geographic location and human capital.” International Migration Review 24: 4–33.Google Scholar
James, Joseph (1945) “Profiles: San Francisco.” Journal of Educational Sociology 19: 166–78.Google Scholar
Johnson, Daniel M., and Campbell, Rex R. (1981) Black Migration in America: A Social Demographic History. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Lieberson, Stanley (1980) A Piece of the Pie: Blacks and Immigrants since 1880. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Long, Larry H. (1988) Migration and Residential Mobility in the United States. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Massey, Douglas S., and Denton, Nancy A. (1993) American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
McWilliams, Carey (1945) “Critical Summary.” Journal of Educational Sociology 19: 187–97.Google Scholar
Miyamoto, S.Frank (1981) Social Solidarity among the Japanese in Seattle. Seattle: University of Washington Press.Google Scholar
Nugent, Walter (1999) Into the West: The Story of Its People. New York: Knopf.Google Scholar
O'Brien, Robert W. (1945) “Profiles: Seattle.” Journal of Educational Sociology 19: 146–57.Google Scholar
Perlmann, Joel (1988) Ethnic Differences: Schooling and Social Structure among the Irish, Italians, Jews, and Blacks in an American City, 1880–1935. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Pleck, Elizabeth H. (1979) Black Migration and Poverty: Boston, 1865–1900. New York: Academic.Google Scholar
Reddick, L. D. (1945) “The new race-relations frontier.” Journal of Educational Sociology 19: 129–45.Google Scholar
Rischin, Moses (1972) “Immigration, migration, and minorities in California: A reassessment.” Pacific Historical Review 41: 71–90.Google Scholar
Romo, Ricardo (1977) “Work and restlessness: Occupational and spatial mobility among Mexicans in Los Angeles, 1918–1928.” Pacific Historical Review 46: 157–80.Google Scholar
Ruggles, Steven, Sobek, Matthew, Alexander, Trent, A. Fitch, Catherine, Goeken, Ronald , Kelly Hall, Patricia, King, Miriam , and Ronnander, Chad (2004) Integrated Public Use Microdata Series: Version 3.0 [machine-readable dataset]. Minneapolis: Minnesota Population Center.Google Scholar
Slatta, Richard W., and Atkinson, Maxine P. (1984) “The ‘Spanish origin’ population of Oregon and Washington.” Pacific Northwest Quarterly 75: 108–16.Google Scholar
Taylor, Quintard (1981) “Blacks and Asians in a white city: Japanese Americans and African Americans in Seattle, 1890–1940.” Western Historical Quarterly 22: 401–29.Google Scholar
Taylor, Quintard (1989) “Black urban development—another view: Seattle's Central District, 1910–1940.” Pacific Historical Review 58: 429–48.Google Scholar
Taylor, Quintard (1994) The Forging of a Black Community: Seattle's Central District from 1870 through the Civil Rights Era. Seattle: University of Washington Press.Google Scholar
Taylor, Quintard (1998) In Search of the Racial Frontier: African Americans in the American West, 1528–1990. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Tolnay, Stewart E. (2003a) “The African American ‘Great Migration’ and beyond.” Annual Review of Sociology 29: 209–32.Google Scholar
Tolnay, Stewart E. (2003b) “Trends in the relative occupational status of African Americans and European immigrants in northern cities, 1880–1970.” Social Science Research 32: 603–32.Google Scholar
Tolnay, Stewart E., Curtis White, Katherine J., Crowder, Kyle D., and Adelman, Robert M. (2005) “Distances traveled during the Great Migration: An analysis of racial differences among male migrants.” Social Science History 29: 523–48.Google Scholar
Trotter, Joseph W. (1985) Black Milwaukee: The Making of an Urban Industrial Proletariat, 1915–1945. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Wayne, George H. (1976) “Negro migration and colonization of Colorado, 1870-1930.” Journal of the West 15: 102–20.Google Scholar
White, Richard (1986) “Race relations in the American West.” American Quarterly 38: 396–416.Google Scholar