Race, Employment Hardship, and Inequality in the American Nonmetropolitan South

Abstract

The present study (1) examines changing levels of employment-related hardship among southern nonmetropolitan blacks for 1970-85, (2) compares the employment circumstances of nonmetropolitan black men and women with those of whites and blacks in the metropolitan South and in the North, and (3) assesses the contribution of black deficits in human capital and job characteristics to persistent racial inequality in rural employment adequacy. Data from the March annual demographic files of the Current Population Survey indicate that black employment hardship continues to be felt in nonmetropolitan areas, where two out of every five blacks are without jobs, cannotfind a full-time job, or cannot earn enough to raise themselves significantly above poverty thresholds. Employment hardship among nonmetropolitan blacks continues to exceed that of blacks elsewhere, despite the comparatively rapid deterioration in employment conditions for northern and southern metropolitan blacks in the past decade. Finally, racial inequality in nonmetropolitan employment adequacy remains substantial in the 1980s and cannot be explained away by black deficits in human capital or by the disproportionate concentration of blacks in declining industrial sectors or in blue-collar occupations.