Opportunity and the Minority Middle Class: A Comparison of Blacks in the United States and Catholics in Northern Ireland

Abstract

The residential segregation of minorities creates middle class niches within an otherwise disadvantaged labor market. The middle-class employment that arises in this ecology is distinct from the middle class of majority groups. It is composed of many community service positions and few positions in management and goods production. This pattern holds for both blacks in the United States and Catholics in Northern Ireland. The growth of the black middle class during the 1960s and 1970s included an increase in middle-class employment in professions not tied to community service. The patterns of internal stratification and middle-class recruitment within the black and Catholic minority groups are very similar, despite the different historical, economic, and cultural contexts of discrimination in the United States and Northern Ireland.