Race and Employment Dislocation in California's Aerospace Industry

This article finds that African American and Latino workers have borne a disproportionate share of employment costs associated with defense cuts in California's aerospace industry. The data for this analysis come from administrative files, which contain demographic and employment-related information for everyone who collects unemployment-insurance benefits. The analysis shows that African Americans suffered higher displacement rates, longer unemployment spells, and poorer outcomes in new jobs than whites. Latinos were disadvantaged in several ways, but not consistently in all categories. Asian Americans, on the other hand, generally fared better than whites. These results show that economic dislocation, in the form of defense cuts, reinforces racial inequality in the labor market.