are employers in the U.S. relying on “informal hiring practices” to maintain racially homogeneous workplaces?
Progress toward equal opportunity in the U.S. labor market since the Civil Rights Act of 1964 has been relatively slow and has stalled since the 1980s (Tomaskovic-Devey et al. 2006). Despite modest gains made by women and racial minorities, white male advantage has remained essentially undisturbed in the most sought after blue-collar and white-collar occupations (Tomaskovic-Devey and Stainback 2007). Researchers have offered a number of explanations for the persistence of gender and race inequality (see Padavic and Reskin 2002 ford review). We focus our attention on the role of social networks in information flow and specifically on differential access to information about job openings. Given the widespread use of informal hiring practices, the distribution of job information plays a central role in determining success and failure in the labor market. Information about job opportunities is unevenly spread throughout society (Burt 1972). Numerous people are qualified to fill any given position in the labor market, so simply knowing about the position opening is an important factor in determining who gets which jobs. The receipt of job information is therefore paramount for understanding how people gain access to their jobs (Granovetter [1974] 1995).
Access to information can be an impediment for women and racial/ethnic minorities’ attempts to gain entry into “good jobs.” Information about jobs passes through gendered and racialized social networks (Green, Tigges, and Diaz 1999). White males are presumed to have access to high quality jobs through old boys networks (Saloner 1985), while women and racial minorities are often isolated from information about good jobs. In this way, the flow of job information is hypothesized to serve as a mechanism in the reproduction of existing gender and racial inequality.
Literally, at every step of the employment process — even before one submits an application — African Americans and people of color are at a disadvantage for meaningful job opportunities due to employment discrimination occurring in the present. Even if an employer’s practices, policies and procedures create an unintentional disparate impact against qualified African Americans and people of color, this is still a violation of this nation’s anti-discrimination laws. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 must be strengthened!!
Source: Dan Ao, Nan Lin, Steve McDonald. Networks of Opportunity: Gender, Race and Job Leads. Social Problems, Vol. 56, No. 3 (August 2009), pp. 385-386.