The Dimensions of Racial Inequality: Occupational and Residential Segregation Across Metropolitan Areas in the United States

2003 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 313-333 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seth Ovadia
Keyword(s):  
Residential Segregation ◽  
Racial Inequality ◽  
Census Data ◽  
Metropolitan Areas ◽  
The United States ◽  
Zero Order ◽  
Structural Systems ◽  
Exogenous Factor ◽  
Empirical Examination ◽  
American Society

Residential and occupational segregation are two structural systems that perpetuate the disadvantaged status of blacks in American society. Despite extensive research on both these topics, there has been little empirical examination as to whether they are independent systems or both part of a larger monolithic system of racial inequality. An analysis of 1990 Census data for 261 metropolitan areas shows that there is a negative zero‐order correlation between the two forms of segregation. However, controlling for the size of the population accounts for the negative correlation. Net of this exogenous factor, the correlation between the two forms of segregation is not statistically significant. This suggests that for individuals, the issue of racial inequality is one of tradeoffs between forms of disadvantage as one moves from city to city. For policymakers, these results indicate that urban racial inequality is multidimensional, requiring different strategies for different manifestations.

scholarly journals Color Crit: Critical Race Theory and the History and Future of Colorism in the United States

2018 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert L. Reece
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Racial Inequality ◽  
Census Data ◽  
Black Americans ◽  
The United States ◽  
Skin Tone ◽  
Critical Race ◽  
Race Theory ◽  
American Society

Critical race theory teaches that racism and racial inequality are constants in American society that stand outside of the prejudices of individuals. It argues that structures and institutions are primarily responsible for the maintenance of racial inequality. However, critical race theorists have neglected to formally examine and theorize colorism, a primary offshoot of racial domination. Although studies of colorism have become increasingly common, they lack a unifying theoretical framework, opting to lean on ideas about prejudice and preference to explain the advantages lighter skinned, Black Americans are afforded relative to darker skinned Black Americans. In this study, I deploy a critical race framework to push back against preference as the only, or primary, mechanism facilitating skin tone stratification. Instead, I use historical Census data and regression analysis to explore the historical role of color-based marriage selection on concentrating economic advantage among lighter skinned Black Americans. I then discuss the policy and legal implications of developing a structural view of colorism and skin tone stratification in the United States and the broader implications for how we conceptualize race in this country.

scholarly journals For blacks in America, the gap in neighborhood poverty has declined faster than segregation

2016 ◽  
Vol 113 (47) ◽  
pp. 13372-13377 ◽  
Author(s):  
Glenn Firebaugh ◽  
Francesco Acciai
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Residential Segregation ◽  
Census Data ◽  
Metropolitan Areas ◽  
The United States ◽  
Neighborhood Poverty ◽  
Racial Gap ◽  
Blacks And Whites

Black residential segregation has been declining in the United States. That accomplishment rings hollow, however, if blacks continue to live in much poorer neighborhoods than other Americans. This study uses census data for all US metropolitan areas in 1980 and 2010 to compare decline in the neighborhood poverty gap between blacks and other Americans with decline in the residential segregation of blacks. We find that both declines resulted primarily from narrowing differences between blacks and whites as opposed to narrowing differences between blacks and Hispanics or blacks and Asians. Because black–white differences in neighborhood poverty declined much faster than black–white segregation, the neighborhood poverty disadvantage of blacks declined faster than black segregation—a noteworthy finding because the narrowing of the racial gap in neighborhood poverty for blacks has gone largely unnoticed. Further analysis reveals that the narrowing of the gap was produced by change in both the medians and shapes of the distribution of poverty across the neighborhoods where blacks, whites, Hispanics, and Asians reside.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Valls
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Policy ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Racial Inequality ◽  
The United States ◽  
Racial Justice ◽  
Color Blind ◽  
American Society ◽  
Liberal Political Theory

The persistence of racial inequality in the United States raises deep and complex questions of racial justice. Some observers argue that public policy must be “color-blind,” while others argue that policies that take race into account should be defended on grounds of diversity or integration. This chapter begins to sketch an alternative to both of these, one that supports strong efforts to address racial inequality but that focuses on the conditions necessary for the liberty and equality of all. It argues that while race is a social construction, it remains deeply embedded in American society. A conception of racial justice is needed, one that is grounded on the premises provided by liberal political theory.

Rethinking Racial Justice

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Valls
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Racial Inequality ◽  
Jim Crow ◽  
The United States ◽  
Racial Equality ◽  
Controversial Issues ◽  
Racial Justice ◽  
Black Institutions ◽  
American Society ◽  
Racial Lines

American society continues to be characterized by deep racial inequality that is a legacy of slavery and Jim Crow. What does justice demand in response? In this book, Andrew Valls argues that justice demands quite a lot—the United States has yet to fully reckon with its racial past, or to confront its ongoing legacies. Valls argues that liberal values and principles have far-reaching implications in the context of the deep injustices along racial lines in American society. In successive chapters, the book takes on such controversial issues as reparations, memorialization, the fate of black institutions and communities, affirmative action, residential segregation, the relation between racial inequality and the criminal justice system, and the intersection of race and public schools. In all of these contexts, Valls argues that liberal values of liberty and equality require profound changes in public policy and institutional arrangements in order to advance the cause of racial equality. Racial inequality will not go away on its own, Valls argues, and past and present injustices create an obligation to address it. But we must rethink some of the fundamental assumptions that shape mainstream approaches to the problem, particularly those that rely on integration as the primary route to racial equality.

The Myth of the Latin American Race Monolith: Notes for Future Comparative Research on Racial Inequality in the Americas

2021 ◽  
pp. 003464462199600
Author(s):  
Diego Ayala-McCormick
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Puerto Rico ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Comparative Research ◽  
Racial Inequality ◽  
Census Data ◽  
The United States ◽  
Unemployment Rates ◽  
Racial Ideologies ◽  
Racial Lines

It has become common to compare racial inequality in the United States with a “Latin American” pattern of racial inequality in which egalitarian racial ideologies mask stark socioeconomic inequalities along racial lines. However, relatively few comparative studies exist attempting to analyze variations in degrees of racial inequality in the Americas. To stimulate further research in this area, the following study analyzes census data on racial inequality in unemployment rates, educational attainment, homeownership rates, and income in Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the United States. The results suggest that while Brazil is similar to the United States in displaying large levels of racial inequality in the areas measured, Cuba and Puerto Rico display significantly lower levels of racial inequality and Colombia falls in between, undermining conceptions of a monolithic Latin American racial system.

Censuses in the USA and statistics of immigration from Poland – methodological-historical perspective

2021 ◽  
Vol 66 (6) ◽  
pp. 27-49
Author(s):  
Włodzimierz Okrasa
Keyword(s):  
Census Data ◽  
The United States ◽  
Federal Funds ◽  
The Us ◽  
Lower Chamber ◽  
The Usa ◽  
History Of ◽  
Us Constitution ◽  
American Society ◽  
Dynamic Population

Censuses of population and housing in the United States are of particular interest to experts in many disciplines – in addition to statisticians, also to demographers, political scientists, sociologists, historians, and even psychologists and anthropologists. This is so not only because of the long history of US censuses (the first census in the US was carried out in 1790) or methodological innovations, but due to immigration responsible for the dynamic population growth, and to the specific purpose of the census, which is ensuring the proportional (according to the numer of inhabitants) distribution of seats in the lower chamber of Congress and federal funds (apportionment), guaranteed by the US Constitution. The heterogeneity of the American society, both in the racial-ethnic and religious-cultural sense, in addition to the above considerations, raise questions about the purposes of those changes and directions for improvement in subsequent censuses. The aim of the article is to present the problems and challenges related to censuses in the USA. The paper focuses on methodological and operational solutions that can be implemented thanks to several improvements, including the progress in the fields of statistics and technology. The paper also discusses the issues of credibility of the census data, based on the example of immigration from Poland and the Polish diaspora in the USA.

Residential Patterns among Religious Groups in Canadian Cities

2011 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 393-413 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Fong ◽  
Elic Chan
Keyword(s):  
Residential Segregation ◽  
Religious Identity ◽  
Census Data ◽  
Metropolitan Areas ◽  
Community Services ◽  
Religious Community ◽  
Canadian Society ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
Residential Patterns ◽  
Comprehensive Comparison

This study, based on 2001 Canadian census data for 16 census metropolitan areas, explores residential segregation among eight religious groups. We include non–Christian religious groups to reflect the emerging religious diversity of Canadian society. Our study provides the first comprehensive comparison of the residential patterns of people affiliated with major religious groups in Canada. We argue that each religion is associated with unique sets of religious institutional behaviors, which in turn shape each religious group's relationships with other religious groups. In this study, we identify four religious institutional behaviors that can affect the residential segregation of various religious groups: institutional orientation of religious community services, subcultural identity, religious identity, and discrimination. The findings indicate that these religious institutional behaviors are related to the residential segregation patterns of different religious groups.

The Macrosociology of Paid Domestic Labor

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Milkman ◽  
Ellen Reese ◽  
Benita Roth
Keyword(s):  
Women Workers ◽  
Census Data ◽  
Employment Growth ◽  
Metropolitan Areas ◽  
The United States ◽  
Domestic Labor ◽  
Modernization Theory ◽  
Class Inequality ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

This chapter examines the importance of growing class inequality as a driver of employment growth in paid domestic labor by drawing on macrosociological, rather than microsociological, literature. More specifically, it considers what explains variation in the proportion of the labor force employed in paid domestic labor over time and space. After comparing the microsociology of paid domestic labor with the modernization theory and the macrosociology of domestic labor, the chapter analyzes the 1990 census data for the 100 largest metropolitan areas in the United States. It shows that income inequality is a significant predictor of the proportion of women workers employed in domestic labor, as was the case in the 1980s in southern California. It also attributes the expansion of employment in paid domestic work in the late twentieth century to widening class inequality, including inequality among women.

Women, Race, and Ethnicity: Exploring Earnings Differentials in Metropolitan America

2007 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 137-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lesley Williams Reid ◽  
Robert M. Adelman ◽  
Charles Jaret
Keyword(s):  
Race And Ethnicity ◽  
White Women ◽  
Census Data ◽  
Metropolitan Areas ◽  
Structural Characteristics ◽  
The United States ◽  
Earnings Inequality ◽  
Retail Trade ◽  
Asian Women ◽  
Black And White

We draw on leading theories about the structural causes of inequality in the United States to explore inter–metropolitan differences in average earnings for white, black, Hispanic, and Asian women. Our analysis utilizes 2000 census data for a sample of 150 metropolitan areas to investigate the determinants of both women's median earnings and earnings’ inequality by race and ethnicity. We find substantial differences between the earnings of minority and white women across metropolitan areas, although the differences are not in the same direction for all groups. Among other findings, our results indicate: (1) The more retail trade and educational, health, and social service employment, the lower the earnings of most women; (2) the larger the immigrant population in an area, the higher the earnings of white and Asian, but not black or Hispanic women; and (3) residing in the South increases levels of inequality between black and white women. In summary, our results indicate that conventional predictors of aggregate earnings and earnings’ inequality operate differently for white, black, Hispanic, and Asian women at the metropolitan level. Structural characteristics of metropolitan areas all have some influence on women's economic outcomes; but those influences are consistent neither for the earnings of all groups of women nor for earnings’ inequality between groups of women.

scholarly journals Neighborhood Opportunities, Race, and Class: The Black Middle Class and Residential Segregation

2004 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert M. Adelman
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Residential Segregation ◽  
College Graduates ◽  
Census Data ◽  
Metropolitan Areas ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Racial Residential Segregation ◽  
Race And Class ◽  
Female Headed Households ◽  
Middle Class Blacks

Racial residential segregation has received considerable attention from social scientists who, in general, have found that African Americans, particularly those in large, northeastern and midwestern metropolitan areas have been highly segregated from whites since at least the beginning of the Great Migration. This analysis combines research on racial residential segregation with research about residential segregation based on social class in order to study the segregation of middle‐class blacks from middle‐class whites. By using Census data that incorporate consistent geographic definitions of Census tracts in 50 U.S. metropolitan areas from 1970 to 1990, I assess change in the levels of residential segregation between middle‐class blacks and middle‐class whites. The index of dissimilarity indicates that while there was a decrease in the segregation of middle‐class blacks from middle‐class whites between 1970 and 1990, in many metropolitan areas this segregation remained high through 1990. The analysis also shows that middle‐class blacks lived in neighborhoods, on average, with considerably more poverty, more boarded‐up homes, more female‐headed households, and fewer college graduates than neighborhoods inhabited by middle‐class whites. Overall, the results suggest that, for the most part, these groups remain residentially separated in U.S. metropolitan areas.

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