Race, class, and occupational mobility: black and white women in service work in the united states

Marilyn Power and Sam Rosenberg

Feminist Economics, 1995, vol. 1, issue 3, 40-59

Abstract: This paper examines and compares the occupational mobility of black and white women who worked in service occupations in the United States in their late teens and 20s. Rather than using a conventional methodology of hypothesis-testing based on a narrow set of variables, the study uses a descriptive methodology to help illuminate the complex interaction of race, gender, and class in the lives of women. Our goal is to investigate how being a service worker when young contributed to a different “life story” for women of different race and class. The study finds that black women experienced considerably less occupational mobility than white women, and were far more likely to get stuck in low-paid service occupations over the long term. Many of the white women, but few of the black, were able to use service work as a temporary means of support while they prepared themselves for more lucrative employment. Striking differences in class background and presence of children appeared to be contributing factors in this difference in mobility by race.

Keywords: Occupational mobility; service workers; black women; race and gender; domestic workers; waitresses (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1995
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DOI: 10.1080/714042248

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