Abstract
It might seem difficult to say much that is new about occupational segregation, whether by gender or ‘race’/ethnicity, above all in the relatively well-researched USA. This book succeeds, partly by virtue of the authors’ access to a high quality but previously unexploited dataset, and partly through analysis of gender and ethnic segregation as a complementary set of inequalities. With clearly focused analysis, this combination produces some important new findings. The data, from over six million workplaces, were collected by the US Equal Employment Opportunities Commission to evaluate the effects of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. After some interesting discussion of the politics surrounding the establishment of the Act, including the observation that gender was included not to strengthen but to undermine the proposed legislation (as gender inequality was at the time not considered an important issue), the book launches into a substantial range of analysis.
This is divided into historical periods, starting in 1966, which is described as a time of uncertainty which was nevertheless marked by a significant fall in workplace segregation by ‘race’ – though with little change in gender segregation. After 1972 political support for the policing of ‘racial’ inequality declined but the women’s movement gathered pace and gender segregation fell significantly, with also a big increase in female entry into professional jobs. Under neo-liberal pressure, general progress stalled significantly from 1980 to 2005, the end date of the analysis.
Desegregation is only a part of the story. At least as important is integration into ‘good’ jobs. Firms managed desegregation by channelling black people and women into lesser jobs, with the result that white men have actually benefitted from equal opportunities. In addition, competition grew between groups, for instance between black men and black women, or black and white women. In a ‘job queuing’ framework the book argues, for example, that as black women increasingly entered employment they took traditionally female jobs, thus facilitating desegregation between white men and women; on the other hand black men seem to have been ahead of white women in the queue for average male jobs. Resegregation has also occurred, for instance between black and white women.
The book demonstrates the difficulty of maintaining not only equality itself but even the equalities agenda. This conclusion has political but also research implications. As the national impetus has fallen away in the United States, local or sector-specific (and therefore rather unpredictable) desegregation trends have become a necessary focus for analysis. Such findings generally confirm work in other countries showing a slowing down of the trend towards desegregation.
The book is a major resource on desegregation trends and the relationship of these to accessing good jobs, as well as trends at the regional and industrial levels. The text is descriptive and easy to follow in the main, but the authors sometimes use innovative quantitative techniques. On the more negative side, it is a bit overwhelming. The analysis becomes cumulatively excessive, repeating a similar pattern across chapters, which partly detracts from the important underlying argument. There are also some important restrictions to the scope of the book. One is the lack of wage data, which the authors partially overcome through analysis of the relationship of desegregation to access to ‘good jobs’. A second problem, which the authors briefly allude to, is the emphasis on what they call the ‘racial’ distinction of black/white, with little reference being made to ethnic distinctions, for instance including the situation of Hispanics and Asians. Perhaps most important, though, is the exclusion of analysis of the public sector, the reasons for which are unclear. It is well known that the public sector reduces wage inequality while it is also attractive both to women and to ethnic minorities. The book does, however, analyse the effects of the Act through comparing federal contractors to other firms, thereby again partially overcoming an important problem. Initially, ‘racial’ (but not gender) desegregation was relatively high in these government-dependent firms, benefitting primarily black men but black women less so. Desegregation picked up pace rapidly in these firms for white women, however.
Against these limitations it has to be said that the book already does a lot. It is an important account, bringing together a range of telling insights into trends in and implications of desegregation in one country by both gender and ‘race’, but above all because it seeks to combine these into a single analytical framework, for example facilitating the comparison of white and black men or black men and black women. This is a major step forward.