Black Under-representation in Management across U.S. Labor Markets

Although many researchers have documented higher levels of black-white inequality in areas with a high concentration of blacks, the mechanisms underlying this finding have been elusive. Black underrepresentation in management may be one such mechanism. We ask whether black workers' underrepresentation in managerial jobs is especially pronounced in labor markets with a larger black population. Using a unique, two-level data set that combines a large data set of private sector firms with Census data on local labor markets, the authors' hierarchical logistic models strongly support this hypothesis. Net of establishment and labor market-level controls, the likelihood that an establishment exhibits a significant underrepresentation of blacks in management is substantially increased when it operates in a high-proportion black labor market context.