Industry racial employment by skill level: The effects of market structure and racial wage gaps

Abstract

Theories of expense preference suggest that market power gives employers the latitude to engage in employment discrimination. Additionally, labor market theory indicates that discrimination should cause a larger decline in black employment for prevalent and easily replaced low-skill workers relative to scarce, high-skill workers. Using industry-level data, we examine the relationship between worker skill level, market structure, and racial employment and we find that noncompetitive market structure reduces black employment for low-skill workers. In general, our findings indicate that market structure has less influence on the racial composition of highly trained workers relative to easily replaced low-skill workers