I theorize immigrant employment as a case of occupational segregation and investigate earnings and segregation of recent-immigrant Latinos relative to native workers. Analyses of greater Los Angeles 1980 and 1990 Census 5% PUMS demonstrate increased marginalization of immigrant Latinos in “brown-collar” occupations (where Latino immigrants are vastly overrepresented among incumbents). During the 1980s earnings inequality grew between recent immigrants and native-born whites, blacks, and Latinos, even controlling for group differences in labor market characteristics. Yet pay inequality did not rise between whites and native minorities, suggesting deleterious processes particular to immigrant Latinos. Analyses of occupational dissimilarity demonstrate that native minorities are less segregated from immigrant Latinos than are whites; and segregation of recent-immigrant Latinos from native workers intensified in the 1980s, but segregation from earlier-immigrant co-ethnics remained fairly constant. A number of low-level occupations in Los Angeles are now clearly identifiable as brown collar.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AbbottEdith. 1924. Women in Industry. New York: D. Appleton.
2.
AltonjiJoseph G.CardDavid. 1991. “The Effects of Immigration on the Labor Market Outcomes of Less-Skilled Natives.” Pp. 201–34 in Immigration, Trade and the Labor Market, edited by AbowdJ.FreemanR.Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
3.
AkerlofGeorge A.1982. “Labor Contracts as Partial Gift Exchange.”Quarterly Journal of Economics97:543–69.
4.
AkerlofGeorge A.1984. “Gift Exchange and Efficiency Wages: Four Views.”American Economic Review74:79–83.
5.
BeanFrank D.TiendaMarta. 1987. The Hispanic Population of the United States. New York: Russell Sage.
6.
BerkRichard. 1983. “An Introduction to Sample Selection Bias in Sociological Data.”American Sociological Review48:386–98.
7.
BlackburnMcKinley L.BloomDavid E.FreemanRichard B.1990. “The Declining Economic Position of Less Skilled American Men.” In A Future of Lousy Jobs? The Changing Structure of U.S. Wages, edited by BurtlessG.Washington, DC: Brookings.
8.
BlalockHerbert M.1967. Toward a Theory of Minority Group Relations. New York: Wiley.
9.
BonacichEdna. 1972. “A Theory of Ethnic Antagonism: The Split Labor Market.”American Sociological Review37:547–59.
10.
BorjasGeorge J.1998. “Do Blacks Gain or Lose from Immigration?” Pp. 51–74 in Help or Hindrance? The Economic Implications of Immigration for African Americans, edited by HamermeshD.S.BeanF.D.New York: Russell Sage.
11.
BowlesSamuel. 1985. “The Production Process in a Competitive Economy: Walrasian, Neo-Hobbesian and Marxian Models.”American Economic Review75:16–36.
12.
BulowJeremySummersLawrence. 1986. “A Theory of Dual Labor Markets with Application in Industrial Policy, Discrimination, and Keynesian Unemployment.”Journal of Labor Economics4:376–414.
13.
ButcherKristin F.1998. “An Investigation of the Effect of Immigration on the Labor-Market Outcomes of African Americans.” Pp. 149–81 in Help or Hindrance? The Economic Implications of Immigration for African Americans, edited by HamermeshD.S.BeanF.D.New York: Russell Sage.
14.
CatanzariteLisa M.1990. “Job Characteristics and Occupational Segregation by Gender and Race/Ethnicity.” Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Sociology, Stanford University.
15.
CatanzariteLisa M.1998. “Immigrant Latino Representation and Earnings Penalties in Occupations.”Research in Social Stratification and Mobility17.
16.
CatanzariteLisa M.1999. “The Dynamics of Change in Los Angeles' Brown-Collar Jobs.” Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association, August.
17.
CatanzariteLisaOrtizVilma. 1995. “Racial/Ethnic Differences in the Impact of Work and Family on Women's Poverty.”Research in Politics and Society5:217–37.
18.
CatanzariteLisa M.StroberMyra H.1993. “Gender Recomposition of the Maquiladora Workforce in Ciudad Juárez.”Industrial Relations32 (1):133–147.
19.
CharlesMariaGruskyDavid B.1995. “Models for Describing the Underlying Structure of Sex Segregation.”American Journal of Sociology100 (4):931–71.
20.
ChengLucieYangPhilip Q.1996. “Asians: The ‘Model Minority’ Deconstructed.” Pp. 305–44 in Ethnic Los Angeles, edited by WaldingerRogerBozorgmehrMehdi. New York: Russell Sage.
21.
CorneliusWayne A.1989. “The U.S. Demand for Mexican Labor.” Pp. 25–47 in Mexican Migration to the United States: Origins, Consequences and Policy Options, edited by CorneliusW.A.BustamenteJ.A.San Diego: Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, University of California, San Diego.
22.
DanzigerSheldonGottschalkPeter. 1993. Uneven Tides: Rising Inequality in America. New York: Russell Sage.
23.
DillBonnie ThorntonCannonLynn WeberVannemanReeve. 1987. “Race and Gender in Occupational Segregation.” Pp. 11–70 in National Committee on Pay Equity, Pay Equity: An Issue of Race, Ethnicity and Sex. Washington, DC: National Committee on Pay Equity.
24.
DonatoKatherine M.DurandJorgeMasseyDouglas S.1992. “Changing Conditions in the U.S. Labor Market.”Population Research and Policy Review11:93–115.
25.
DonatoKatherine M.MasseyDouglas S.1993. “Effect of the Immigration and Reform Control Act on the Wages of Mexican Migrants.”Social Science Quarterly74 (3):523–41.
FogelWalter. 1967. Mexican Americans in Southwest Labor Markets. Mexican-American Study Project. Los Angeles: Regents of the University of California.
28.
General Accounting Office (GAO). 1990. Immigration Reform: Employer Sanctions and the Question of Discrimination. Washington, DC: GAO.
29.
GregoryChester W.1974. Women in Defense Work during World War II: An Analysis of the Labor Problem and Women's Rights. New York: Exposition Press.
30.
GrossmanJ. B.1982. “The Substitutability of Natives and Immigrants in Production.”Review of Economics and Statistics64 (4):596–603.
31.
HeckmanJames J.1989. “Sample Selection Bias as a Specification Error.”Econometrica45:153–61.
32.
JuhnChinhuiMurphyKevin M.PierceBrooks. 1993. “Wage Inequality and the Rise in Returns to Skill.”Journal of Political Economy101 (3):410–42.
33.
KarolyLynn A.1993. “The Trend in Inequality among Families, Individuals and Workers in the United States: A Twenty-five Year Perspective.” Pp. 19–97 in Uneven Tides: Rising Inequality in America, edited by DanzigerS.GottschalkP.New York: Russell Sage.
34.
KilbourneBarbaraEnglandPaulaBeronKurt. 1994. “Effects of Individual, Occupational and Industrial Characteristics on Earnings: Intersections of Race and Gender.”Social Force. 72, no. 4 (June):1149–76.
35.
LaLondeRobert J.TopelRobert H.1991. “Immigrants in the American Labor Market.”American Economic Review81, no. 2 (May):297–302.
36.
LiebersonStanley. 1980. A Piece of the Pie: Blacks and White Immigrants since 1880. Berkeley: University of California Press.
37.
MarcelliEnrico A.HeerDavid M.1997. “Unauthorized Mexican Workers in the 1990 Los Angeles County Labour Force.”International Migration35 (1):59–83.
38.
MilesJack. 1992. “Blacks vs. Browns: The Struggle for the Bottom Rung.”Atlantic70, no. 4 (October):41–68.
39.
MilkmanRuthReeseBenitaRothB.1998. “The Macro-Sociology of (Paid) Domestic Labor.”Work and Occupations25 (4):483–510.
40.
MullerThomasEspenshadeThomas J.1985. The Fourth Wave: California's Newest Immigrants. Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press.
41.
MurphyDevin M.WelchFinis. 1993. “Industrial Change and the Rising Importance of Skill.” Pp. 101–32 in Uneven Tides: Rising Inequality in America, edited by DanzigerS.GottschalkP.New York: Russell Sage.
42.
OlzakSusan. 1989. “Causes of Shifts in Occupational Segregation of the Foreign-Born: Evidence from American Cities, 1870–1880.”Social Forces68 (2):593–620.
43.
OppenheimerValerie Kincade. 1985. “The Sex-Labeling of Jobs,”Industrial Relations7 (May):219–34.
44.
OrtizVilma. 1996. “The Mexican-Origin Population: Permanent Working Class or Emerging Middle Class?” Pp. 247–77 in Ethnic Los Angeles, edited by WaldingerR.BozorgmehrM.New York: Russell Sage.
45.
PioreMichael. 1979. Birds of Passage: Migrant Labor and Industrial Societies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
46.
ReimersCordelia W.1998. “Unskilled Immigration and Changes in the Wage Distributions of Black, Mexican American and Non-Hispanic White Male Dropouts.” Pp. 107–48 in Help or Hindrance? The Economic Implications of Immigration for African Americans, edited by HamermeshD.S.BeanF.D.New York: Russell Sage.
47.
ReskinBarbara F.RoosPatricia A.1990. Job Queues, Gender Queues: Explaining Women's Inroads into Male Occupations. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
48.
SabaghGeorges. 1993. “Los Angeles, a World of New Immigrants: An Image of Things to Come?” Pp. 97–126 in Migration Policies in Europe and the United States, edited by LucianiG.Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
49.
SabaghGeorgesBozorgmehrMehdi. 1996. “Population Change: Immigration and Ethnic Transformation.” Pp. 79–107 in Ethnic Los Angeles, edited by WaldingerR.BozorgmehrM.New York: Russell Sage.
50.
SimonRita J.1985. Public Opinion and the Immigrant: Print Media Coverage, 1880–1980. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath.
51.
SojaEdward W.1988. “It All Comes Together in Los Angeles.” In SojaEdward W.Postmodern Geographies. London: Routledge, Chapman and Hall.
52.
SorensonElaineEnchauteguiMaria. 1994. “Immigrant Male Earnings in the 1980s: Divergent Patterns by Race and Ethnicity.” Pp. 139–61 in Immigration and Ethnicity: The Integration of America's Newest Arrivals, edited by EdmonstonB.PassellJ.S.Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press.
53.
StolzenbergRoss M.ReliesDaniel A.1990. “Theory Testing in a World of Constrained Research Design: The Significance of Heckman's Censored Sampling Bias Correction for Nonexperimental Research.”Sociological Methods and Research18 (4):395–415.
54.
StroberMyra H.1984. “Toward a General Theory of Occupational Sex Segregation: The Case of Public School Teaching.” Pp. 144–56 in Sex Segregation in the Workplace; Trends, Explanations, Remedies, edited by ReskinBarbara F.Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
55.
StroberMyra H.CatanzariteLisa M.1989. “Notes Toward an Unequal Access Theory of Race Gender Segregation in Occupations.” Paper presented at the International Sociological Association Research Committee 28 (Social Stratification) Summer Meeting, Stanford, California. August.
56.
StroberMyra H.1994. “The Relative Attractiveness Theory of Occupational Segregation by Gender.”Beiträge zur Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (Labor Market and Occupational Research)179:116–39.
57.
TaeuberAlma F.TaeuberKarl E.CainGlen C.1966. “Occupational Assimilation and the Competitive Process: A Reanalysis.”American Journal of Sociology72: *273–85.
58.
ThurowLester C.1972. “Education and Economic Equality.”Public Interest. (Summer):66–81.
59.
TiendaMarta. 1989. “Looking to the 1990s: Mexican Immigration in Sociological Perspective.” Pp. 109–47 in Mexican Migration to the United States: Origins, Consequences and Policy Options, edited by CorneliusW.A.BustamanteJ.A.San Diego: Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, University of California, San Diego.
60.
Tomaskovic-DeveyDonald. 1993. Gender and Racial Inequality at Work: The Sources and Consequences of Job Segregation. Ithaca: ILR Press.
61.
United States Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration. 1977. Dictionary of Occupational Titles. Washington, DC: United States Department of Labor.
62.
United States General Accounting Office. 1990. “Immigration Reform: Employer Sanctions and the Question of Discrimination.”Washington, DC: United States General Accounting Office.
63.
WaldingerRoger. 1996. “Who Makes the Beds, Who Washes the Dishes? Black/Immigrant Competition Reassessed.” Pp. 265–88 in Immigrants and Immigration Policy: Individual Skills, Family Ties and Group Identities, edited by DuleepH.O.WunnavaP.V.Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.
64.
WaldingerRogerBaileyThomas. 1994. “The New Immigrants.” Pp. 119–44 in The Changing U.S. Labor Market, edited by GinzburgE.Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
65.
WaldingerRogerBozorgmehrMehdi. 1996. “The Making of a Multicultural Metropolis.” Pp. 3–37 in Ethnic Los Angeles, edited by WaldingerR.BozorgmehrM.New York: Russell Sage.
66.
ZamudioMargie. 1994. “Bad Attitudes, Good Soldiers: Native Black and Immigrant Latino Labor in the Los Angeles Hotel Industry.” Unpublished manuscript.
