Residential Segregation by Occupation and Race in Ten Urbanized Areas, 1950-1970

Abstract

Earlier studies by Duncan and Duncan (1955), Wilkins (1956), and Uyeki (1964) examined occupational residential segregation in a total of ten U.S. urbanized areas in 1950. The present study is a partial replication of these previous investigations, directed at measuring the changes in residential segregation in these same urbanized areas during the 1950s and 1960s. Changes in the relationship between racial segregation and occupational residential segregation are also examined. Occupational residential segregation between most occupational categories was found to have slightly increased during the 1950s. During the 1960s the degree of residential segregation between service workers and laborers vis-i-vis those in the higher occupational categories decreased, while segregation between persons in the higher categories remained much the same. Indexes of occupational residential dissimilarity calculated within and between racial groups reveal the degree to which gross occupational residential segregation was due to racial residential segregation and differentials between occupational categories in racial composition. These indexes also show that the degree of racial residential segregation depended somewhat upon the respective occupations of the whites and nonwhites wh6se residential distributions were compared. In 1960, the degree of racial residential segregation was slightly lower between whites and nonwhites in the lower categories. Between 1960 and 1970 nonwhites in the highest occupational categories became slightly less segregated from whites, while whites and nonwhites in the lowest occupational categories became slightly more segregated.