Job Authority Research Articles

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

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.

Payoffs to Power Among Males in the Middle Class: Has Race Declined in its Significance?

This article specifies the parameters of William Wilson's “declining significance of race” thesis and within the context of the debate about it uses data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to examine racial differences among a cohort of males in the earnings returns to two separate dimensions of job authority in middle-class jobs between 1976 and 1985. Findings do not support the Wilson thesis. Specifically, the gap in returns has increased for both authority dimensions over the approximately ten-year period. In addition, the racial gap is greater at higher than at lower hierarchical levels across both authority dimensions. Specific employment practices that explain the increase in the earnings gap over the work-career are identified and the overall implications of the findings for the Wilson thesis are discussed.

Work–Family Imagery and Gender Stereotypes: Television and the Reproduction of Difference

This article explores how popular cultural imagery reflects and reproduces work–family segregation and gender inequality. Social constructionist research on television, advertising, and gender is reviewed, and theories explaining gender inequality in the workplace and the home are summarized. Results of a study of 1699 television commercials from the 1990s are presented, and hypotheses about the relationships among gender, family relationship, work status, occupational category, job authority, and interaction style of characters are evaluated. Compared to men characters, women in the advertisements were less prevalent, more likely to be shown in families, less likely to hold jobs, less likely to be employed in professional occupations, more likely to be employed in service/clerical occupations, less likely to exercise authority, less likely to display active/instrumental behavior, and more likely to be pictured as sex objects. Logistic regression analysis demonstrated that gender, job characteristics, family membership, and target audience all significantly influenced the likelihood that a character would display stereotyped behaviors. Results suggest that media imagery has changed only slightly, with men predominantly portrayed as workers and women as sex objects.

Race, Income, and Authority at Work: A Cross-Temporal Analysis of Black and White Men (1972-1994)

Using data from the 1972-1994 General Social Surveys, I examine racial differences in the effect of job authority on men's income. The research addresses three questions: (I) Does a racial gap in income between black and white men persist net of background factors? (2) Are there black-white differences in the amount of income returns to job authority?; and (3) does the black-white gap in income returns to job authority change over time? There is an income gap between black and white men even after controlling for education, experience, hours worked, occupation, authority, region, and city size. There is no difference in the income returns to job authority among men at the lowest levels of authority. However, among men at the highest level of authority, there is a substantial net difference favoring whites over blacks. Finally, there is little evidence that this income gap declined between 1972 and 1994. I discuss the implications for the importance of race as a factor affecting individual life chances.

Pathways to Power: Racial Differences in the Determinants of Job Authority

Pathways to Power: Racial Differences in the Determinants of Job Authority

Pathways to Power: Racial Differences in the Determinants of Job Authority

This study uses data from the 1985 wave of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) to assess predictions from the particularistic mobility thesis concerning how African-American and white males reach different hierarchical levels of job authority. Relative to whites, African Americans move into different hierarchical levels of the authority structure by a narrow and circumscribed route. For African Americans, the acquisition of significant human capital credentials and experience at a similar level in the occupational structure in next-to- last job with the same employer are prerequisites to being promoted into present positions of job authority. However, findings from separate analyses by employment sector suggest there is substantially greater similarity in the determinants of job authority in the public than the private sector. I discuss the implications of these findings for explaining racial differences in paths to positions of job authority.

AUTHORITY HIERARCHIES AT WORK:

This study investigates whether and how sex and race affect access to and rewards for job authority, using 1980 survey data for 1,216 employed workers. The authors examine whether, net of human-capital characteristics, sex and race affect access to and compensation for job authority. In addition, the authors examine whether the translation of credentials into authority and earnings varies depending on workers' sex or race.

How much is an MPA worth? public administration education and federal career success

Using a one percent sample of federal personnel records, this paper compares the grades, salaries, job authority, and occupations of MPA-holders to those of federal employees with graduate degrees in business administration, law, the social sciences, and other fields. Even after the race, sex, experience, age, and educational levels of employees have been accounted for, a graduate degree in PA appears to increase career success more than most graduate education and at least as much as an MBA degree. PA programs remain a minor source of managerial personnel, however, and may become less important as competition with business and law schools increases.

The Subjective Meaning of Social Class Identification in the United States

This paper assesses the significance and meaning to Americans of five common social class terms: poor, working class, middle class, upper middle class, and upper class. After respondents in a national survey had been asked with which of these five classes they identified, they were asked how they would assign various occupations to the classes and what criteria they used to define membership in their own class. Most respondents were able to assign a variety of occupations to social classes with little or no hesitation, and there was high agreement about the class location of occupations. The prevailing class assignments of those occupations reflect hierarchical socioeconomic characteristics (such as income, job authority, education, and skill) rather than a qualitative blue-collar/white-collar distinction. Finally, the criteria that respondents selected as important in defining the social class with which they identify suggest that class is at least as much a social as an economic phenomenon in the United States. Mary R. Jackman is Associate Professor of Sociology and Faculty Associate in the Survey Research Center at the University of Michigan. This research was supported by grants from the National Institute for Mental Health (MH-26433) and the National Science Foundation (SOC 75-00405). The author is indebted to Mary Scheuer Senter for her invaluable help in the preparation of the questionnaire and in all subsequent stages of the research from data management to commenting on early drafts of the paper. Suzanne Purcell and Leslie Eveland also provided indispensable assistance with data management and analysis. Finally, thanks go to several people for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper: Richard Centers, William A. Gamson, Gerald Gurin, Joan Huber, Robert W. Jackman, and Howard Schuman. Public Opinion Quarterly ? 1979 by The Trustees of Columbia University Published by Elsevier North-Holland, Inc. 0033-362X/79/0043-443/$1.75 This content downloaded from 157.55.39.177 on Sat, 19 Nov 2016 04:38:57 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

The Causes and Cost of Racial Exclusion from Job Authority

The Causes and Cost of Racial Exclusion from Job Authority

A multivariate study of subordinate perceptions of and attitudes toward minority and majority managers.

Abstract : Questionnaire data were collected from 582 subordinate supervisors in 30 merchandising units managed by 6 black males, 11 white females, and 13 white males to investigate manager and subordinate sex group and ethnic group effects on 10 attitudinal and perceptual groupings: satisfaction, leadership, behavioral intentions, job problems, job authority, communication influences, direction of communication, kind of communication, quality of communication, and modality of communication. These effects and subordinate job level differences were investigated after confounding demographic and organizational influences were statistically controlled through multiple regression analyses.