Payoffs to Power Among Males in the Middle Class: Has Race Declined in its Significance?

Abstract

This article specifies the parameters of William Wilson's “declining significance of race’ thesis and within the context of the debate about it uses data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to examine racial differences among a cohort of males in the earnings returns to two separate dimensions of job authority in middle‐class jobs between 1976 and 1985. Findings do not support the Wilson thesis. Specifically, the gap in returns has increased for both authority dimensions over the approximately ten‐year period. In addition, the racial gap is greater at higher than at lower hierarchical levels across both authority dimensions. Specific employment practices that explain the increase in the earnings gap over the work‐career are identified and the overall implications of the findings for the Wilson thesis are discussed.

Starting the Same . . . Finishing the Same? Race, Occupational Origins, and Mobility Into Managerial Positions

“…First, the particularistic mobility thesis (Wilson, 1997; Wilson et al, 1999) most systematically posits the causal centrality of minorities’ inability, relative to Whites, to communicate the range of vaguely defined and difficult to measure informal promotion-relevant characteristics—such as perceived loyalty, trustworthiness, sound judgment—that underlie the promotion decisions of employers. Along these lines, employer-induced workplace segregation, in, for example, training/internship programs and work/task assignment groups precludes access to integrated job networks, renders African Americans unable to overcome preexisting “modern anti-minority” (Bobo & Massagli, 2001) cultural/motivational stereotypes, for example, lack of work ethic and fitness for work (Bobo & Massagli, 2001); and forms of cognitive bias, for example, self-serving attribution bias (Tomaskovic-Devey & Skaggs, 1999), thereby relegating them to formal route to promotion (Wilson et al, 1999).…”

The Longitudinal Revolution: Sociological Research at the 50-Year Milestone of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics

“…Underlying these wage gaps are racial differences in occupational positions: Wright (1978) showed that the lower income returns to education for Black men compared to white men are largely explained by differences in social class attainment. Others documented Black-white differences in access to and the wage return to job authority (Mueller 1989;Wilson 1997).…”

The Declining Significance of Race or the Persistent Racialization of Blacks? A Conceptual, Empirical, and Methodological Review of Today’s Race Debate in America

“…Despite the formal illegalization of racial discrimination, various empirical studies show how White privilege and structural racism still operate in housing (Lacy, 2007; Pattillo-McCoy, 1999), income and wealth (D. Brown, 2014; Oliver & Shapiro, 2013; Shapiro, 2004; Thomas, 1993), the workforce (Berry & Bonilla-Silva, 2008; Feagin, 1991; G. Wilson, 1997; G.…”