Racial Differences in Access to Hierarchical Authority: An Analysis of Change over Time, 1972–1994

Abstract

Using national data from the General Social Surveys, I examined race differences in the magnitude of the black-white gap among men in the odds of gaining access to positions of hierarchical authority at work and possible changes in this gap over the period 1972–1994. A test of William Julius Wilson's (1978) thesis of “the declining significance of race” and human capital/structural explanations for racial differences in access to hierarchical authority show that (1) blacks are less likely to be in the highest levels of job authority net of human capital, occupational location, family status, and region of residence, but there are fewer racial differences in access to lower positions of authority, and (2) blacks receive a lower authority return to their levels of education compared to whites. However, separate analyses based on subsamples of men living and working in large and small cities suggest that the racial gap in access to high authority and in the amount of authority returns to education is present more so among men living in large cities than small cities; but the racial gap in men's access to positions of high authority in small cities increased over the twenty-two-year period covered by the data. I discuss the implications of these findings for the persistent role of race in determining the life chances of black and white men.