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Occupational Stratification of Hispanics, Whites, and Blacks in Southern Rural Destinations: A Quantitative Analysis

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Abstract

Since the 1990s, many rural communities in the Southern US have experienced an unprecedented influx of Latino migrants. Some research undertaken on such “new Hispanic destinations” suggests that the newcomers tend to assume low-status jobs shunned by non-Hispanic residents and thus form a segmented labor market, but other work indicates that they heavily compete with natives (particularly African Americans) for less-skilled positions. Drawing on data from the 2000 census and 2009–2011 American Community Survey, this paper examines patterns of occupational stratification between Latino, white, and black men in the rural South to identify whether Hispanic economic relations in the area are better characterized by segmentation or competition. Specifically, occupational dissimilarity indexes and status scores are calculated to map the groups’ relative economic positions in the rural portions of five Southeastern states home to fast-growing nonmetro Latino populations: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. Consistent with the segmentation hypothesis, the results reveal that Latinos are highly occupationally dissimilar from non-Hispanic whites and blacks and rank significantly below both in mean occupational status. Standardization of the stratification measures shows that Hispanics’ labor market isolation and disadvantage can be substantially accounted for by their lower average levels of human capital and US citizenship.

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Notes

  1. The terms “Latino” and “Hispanic” are used interchangeably throughout this paper to refer to individuals of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, or other Spanish language origin.

  2. The Longitudinal Tract Database (LTDB) was employed in the calculations. Drawing on data from multiple censuses, the LTDB provides tract-level estimates of population characteristics at the turn of each decade from 1970 to 2010. Importantly, the tracts are defined uniformly across time, based on the official 2010 boundaries (Logan et al. forthcoming). With regard to the tabulation of the new destination parameters, in both 1990 and 2010 only tracts lying within nonmetro counties as delineated in the 2010 census were classified as nonmetro. Thus, change in Hispanic population size was measured using consistently-defined geographic areas.

  3. Although descriptive statistics on nativity (a key indicator of both human capital and legal status) are provided, nativity-based standardizations are not performed in consideration of the small numbers of US-born Hispanics in the study areas.

  4. Additional analysis shows that Hispanics employed in agriculture are of especially low occupational standing. In 2009–2011, the mean HWSEI of Latinos in this sector varied between 17.1 (GA) and 20.0 (SC), while the average status of their co-ethnics in all other sectors ranged from 25.9 (AR) to 27.5 (GA).

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  1. Population Studies and Training Center, Brown University, Box 1836, 68 Waterman Street, Providence, RI, 02912, USA

    Richard N. Turner

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Turner, R.N. Occupational Stratification of Hispanics, Whites, and Blacks in Southern Rural Destinations: A Quantitative Analysis. Popul Res Policy Rev 33, 717–746 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11113-014-9324-y

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