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The political economy of labor market discrimination: A classroom-friendly presentation of the theory

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The Review of Black Political Economy

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Notes

  1. For example, see Steven Shulman, “A Critique of the Declining Discrimination Hypothesis,” in Shulman and Darity, eds.,The Question of Discrimination: Racial Inequality in the U.S. Labor Market (Middletown CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1989).

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  2. For a more extended comparison of the neoclassical and political economy views of inequality and discrimination, see Randy Albelda, Robert Drago, and Steven Shulman,Unlevel Playing Fields: Understanding Wage Inequality and Discrimination (McGraw-Hill, 1996).

  3. For example, see Patrick Mason, “Accumulation, Segmentation and the Discriminatory Process in the Market for Labor Power,”Review of Radical Political Economics 25 (2), (1993); Rhonda Williams, “Competition, Discrimination, and Differential Wage Rates: On the Continued Relevance of Marxian Theory to the Analysis of Earnings and Employment Inequality,” in Cornwall and Wunnava, eds.,New Approaches to Economic and Social Analyses of Discrimination (New York: Praeger, 1991); and Howard Botwinick,Persistent Inequalities: Wage Disparity Under Capitalist Competition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993).,” in Cornwall and Wunnava, eds.,New Approaches to Economic and Social Analyses of Discrimination (New York: Praeger, 1991); and Howard Botwinick,Persistent Inequalities: Wage Disparity Under Capitalist Competition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993).

  4. Because the statistical work on discrimination tends to be indirect or inferential while case studies and legal findings are difficult to generalize, some researchers have conducted auditor studies in an attempt to directly measure discrimination in credit, housing and labor markets. In an auditor study, equivalent blacks and whites apply for loans, housing or jobs, and report differences in treatment and outcomes. These studies have provided direct evidence that discrimination still exists; however, they cannot be used to estimate its aggregate incidence or fluctuations. For examples concerning the labor market, see Marc Bendick Jr., Charles Jackson, and Victor Reinoso, “Measuring Employment Discrimination Through Controlled Experiments,”Review of Black Political Economy (Summer 1994); and Margery Turner, Michael Fix, and Raymond Struyk,Opportunities Denied. Opportunities Diminished: Racial Discrimination in Hiring, Urban Institute Report 91-9 (Washington, D.C.: Urban Institute Press, 1991).

  5. William Julius Wilson, 1995, “The Political Economy and Urban Racial Tensions,”The American Economist XXXIX(1), (Spring 1995): 3.

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  6. Herbert Blumer, “Industrialization and Race Relations,” inIndustrialization and Race Relations, Guy Hunter, ed. (London: Oxford University Press, 1965), pp. 240–241.

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  7. Stanley Greenberg, “Business Enterprise in a Racial Order,”Politics and Society 6 (1916): 219.

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  8. Rosabeth Moss Kanter,Men and Women of the Corporation (New York: Basic Books, 1977).

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  9. Thomas Pettigrew and Joanne Martin, 1987, “Shaping the Organizational Context for Black American Inclusion,”Journal of Social Issues 43 (1).

  10. James Baron, “Organizational Evidence of Ascription in Labor Markets,” inNew Approaches to Economic and Social Analyses of Discrimination, Richard Cornwall and Phanindra Wunnava, eds. (New York: Praeger, 1991), p. 115.

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  11. Ibid.

  12. Gregory Lewis, “Race, Sex and Supervisory Authority in Federal White-Collar Employment,”Public Administration Review 46 (1), (Jan.–Feb. 1986).

  13. Donald Tomaskovic-Devey,Gender and Racial Inequality at Work: The Sources and Consequences of Job Segregation (Ithaca: ILR Press, 1993), p. 111.

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  14. Harry Braverman,Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1974), ch. 15.

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  15. Braverman, 1974, op. cit.

  16. Michael Reich,Racial Inequality: A Political-Economic Analysis (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981).

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  17. Steven Shulman, “Discrimination, Human Capital and Black-White Unemployment: Evidence from Cities,”Journal of Human Resources 22 (3), (Summer 1987).

  18. An early version of this argument was presented in Steven Shulman, “Competition and Racial Discrimination: The Employment Effects of Reagan’s Labor Market Policies,”Review of Radical Political Economics 16 (4), (1984).

  19. Peter Doeringer and Michael Piore,Internal Labor Markets and Manpower Analysis (Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath, 1971), p. 136.

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  20. Edna Bonacich, “Advanced Capitalism and Black/White Race Relations in the United States: A Split Labor Market Interpretation,” American Sociological Review (February 1976).

  21. Shulman, 1987, op. cit.

  22. Gunnar Myrdal,An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy, Volume I. New York: Random House, 1972 (first published in 1944), pp. 75–78.

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  23. William Darky, Jr., “What’s Left of the Economic Theory of Discrimination,” in Shulman and Darity, eds.,The Question of Discrimination: Racial Inequality in the U.S. Labor Market (Middletown, C.T.: Wesleyan University Press, 1989).

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  24. Douglas Massey and Nancy Denton,American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993).

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  25. 29. Mary Corcoran and Paul Courant, “Sex-Role Socialization, Screening by Sex, and Women’s Work: A Reformulation of Neoclassical and Structural Models of Wage Discrimination and Job Segregation” (mimeo, 1986).

  26. Elaine McCrate, “Labor Market Segmentation and Black/White Teenage Birthrates,”Review of Black Political Economy 18 (4), (1991).

  27. Massey and Denton, 1993, op. cit., p. 153.

  28. Gary Orfield and Carole Ashkinaze,The Closing Door: Conservative Policy and Black Opportunity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991).

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This article is an outgrowth of a book I recently wrote with Randy Albelda and Robert Drago entitledUnlevel Playing Fields: Understanding Wage Inequality and Discrimination (McGraw-Hill 1997).

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Shulman, S. The political economy of labor market discrimination: A classroom-friendly presentation of the theory. The Review of Black Political Economy 24, 47–64 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02690042

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