Occupational Mobility and Racial Inequality in the Evolving Public Sector

George Wilson*

University of Miami

Vincent Roscigno

Ohio State University

Direct all correspondence to George Wilson, Department of Sociology, University of Miami. Merrick Building, Coral Gables, Florida 33124 e-mail:

ABSTRACT

Public Sector Reform And Race-Based Mobility Into White Collar Occupations

We examine whether the recent adoption of “new governance” reform and its attendant “business model” of work organization impacts on African Americans’ prospects for mobility into managerial and professional occupations in the public sector. Findings from a Panel Study of Income Dynamics sample of men indicates that the reform model characterized, most importantly, by increased employer discretion in structuring stratification outcomes—such as promotion prospects--has disadvantaged African Americans, relative to Whites. Specifically, greater racial parity in the incidence, determinants, and timing of mobility achieved by African Americans, relative to Whites, in the public sector than the private sector during the pre-reform period (1985-1990) dissipated during the reform period (2005-2010) primarily because of growing gaps in the public sector. Discussed are the socioeconomic disadvantages deriving from these findings—including the likely contraction of an important African American middle class—and the need to incorporate existing private sector-driven theories of racial stratification into analyses of the public sector.

Public Sector Reform And Race-Based Mobility Into White Collar Occupations

By all sociological accounts the public sector has emerged as a favorable occupational setting for African Americans in the post-1965 civil rights era (Waldinger 1996; Model 1985; Lee 1999). In this vein, the public sector is the portion of the labor market where African Americans have achieved relative parity with Whites in stratification-based outcomes including, one of “vital importance to the socioeconomic well-being of the black population” (Farley and Allen 1998:31) namely, representation within white collar managerial and professional positions. In fact, relative parity is reflected in, for example, findings that in both the 1970’s and 1980’s African Americans increased their representation in managerial and professional occupations at nearly twice the proportional rate as Whites in the public sector but at less than half the rate in the private sector (Glass Ceiling Commission 1995; Farley and Allen 1987). Overall parity in the public sector has been closely associated with the rise of the “new black middle class” (Landry 1987) which is characterized by its unprecedented stability and ability to marshall resources to ensure successful life-chance trajectories on an inter-generational basis (Hout 1984; Wilson 1997; Featherman and Hauser 1978).

Significantly, underlying African Americans’ favorable standing at the white collar level in the public sector has been their prospects for occupational mobility (Hout 1984; Collins 1997). Across the 1970’s and 1980’s, for example, African Americans have been more closely attached to “career ladders” in the public sector than the private sector: a higher proportion of workers in the public sector have “risen through the ranks” from lower level positions and moved into white collar positions (Jaynes and Williams 1989; Farley and Allen 1987). Further, the route to reaching white collar occupations for African Americans between 1970 and 1990 was more similar to Whites in the public than the private sector: the public sector route is relatively broad and--consistent with the notion of a non-discriminatory-based ability to utilize both informal and formal means to attain mobility—was not explained by traditional stratification-based causal factors including the accumulation of human capital, background status, and job/labor market characteristics (Wilson, Sakura-Lemessy and West 1999; McBrier and Wilson 2004; Smith 2005). Finally, in both the 1970’s and 1980’s, the timing to reaching managerial and professional positions was also more similar to Whites in the public than the private sector: relatively rapid ascension through the occupational structure to managerial and professional positions from career outset in the public sector translates into a greater amount of time enjoying the material and symbolic benefits of incumbency in a white collar occupation (Farley 1995; Maume 1999).

Despite these positive assessments, however, there is now reason to suspect that for the first time in the civil rights era the relative parity achieved by African Americans in mobility prospects in the public sector may be declining. In particular, “new governance” (Light 1999; Ingraham, Seldon, and Moynihan 2000) reform widely adopted in the last two decades at the state and federal levels may have impeded the access of African Americans to white collar occupations (Kamarck 2007; Wilson 2006). The character of new governance is captured by Wilson, Roscigno, and Huffman (2013:7):

New governance represents an end to government work as we know it. It alters the nature of employment from a “public service” to a “business model” and represents an extension of the social organization of work that has historically been the basis of minority disadvantage in the private sector. Specifically, rooted in the logic of “privatization”, new governance increases on-site managerial discretion to determine major stratification-based aspects of work. In fact, this increased on-site managerial discretion occurs concomitantly with the de-formalization of rules and bureaucratic procedures that govern employment and, unfold within the context of the implementation of new governance ideology of limited government, that is, the reduction in the size of government.

Overall, new governance-like employment conditions that have historically limited access of African Americans to white collar positions in the private sector may well have a similar effect when adopted in the public sector (Wilson 2006; Wilson, Roscigno, and Huffman 2013). The present study assesses whether this is the case: it uses a sample of men from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) to compare African American/White differences in the incidence and determinants of, as well as timing to, mobility into managerial and professional occupations within the public sector, relative to, the private sector, between the “pre-reform”, i.e., pre-new governance, and, “reform”, i.e., new governance periods.

PUBLIC SECTOR REFORM

Prior to the ascendancy of new governance, the “public service” model of employment was preeminent in the public sector, playing an essential role in creating favorable mobility prospects into white collar occupations for African Americans during the first several decades of the post-1965 civil rights era (Wilson 2006). For over three decades, this “career system” (Bowman and West 2006; Light 1999) of employment structured the work conditions and employment status of the majority of full-time federal and state employees (Kamarck 2007). Designating employees as “classified”, the career system is premised on a quid pro quo, namely, a commitment to pursue equitable policies to full-time workers in exchange for work performed in the “public good” (Kamarck 2007: 110). Stratification-based outcomes—including promotion trajectories--were structured by centralized decision-making and formal bureaucratic procedures so that, for example, decisions regarding, for example, wages, promotion and displacement were made by managers in conjunction with administrative bodies (Werhane, Radin, and Bowie 2004). Further, classified workers have “property rights” in their jobs, which limit involuntary job loss to “just cause” reasons, and they can invoke relatively elaborate equal employment opportunity protections to challenge stratification-based employment decisions—such as the failure to promote (Malamud 1995; Berman, Bowman, West, and Montgomery 2006).

In the last two decades, however, the “reinventing government” movement has been the impetus for widespread reform of government work. During this period, its implementation has accelerated with over half the 45 states and a near majority of the federal agencies that have adopted aspects of it having done so in the post 2003 period (Kamarck 2007).[1] The rationale for new governance has recently been discussed by Bowman and West (2006:42).

New governance is predicated on the logic of private sector “bottom line” principles, that is, it puts a premium on increasing performance, efficiency, and results. In particular, altering public sector work “so that it is run like a business” and, thus, making it more incentive-laden, is thought to enhance individual- and department-level productivity as well as increase the flexibility of managers to make efficiency mandated personnel adjustments at a time when a more fluid public sector is perceived as a response to the rapid pace of social change.

New governance designates employees as “declassified”. Accordingly, decentralization supplants a highly bureaucratized work environment so that on-site discretion of managers increasingly determine stratification aspects of work with minimal firm-level oversight (Kamarck 2007; Bowman and West 2007); declassified workers also lose property rights in their jobs, becoming employees “at will” (Malamud 1995), who absent narrowly carved judicial and legislative exceptions, can be terminated for “any or not reason at all” (Villemez and Bridges 1994), and, they have restricted opportunities to invoke equal opportunity laws to contest employers’ decisions regarding major stratification-relevant aspects of their employment (Wilson 2006; Dobbin 2009). Finally, discretion is exercised apart from the rules/procedures governing declassified status: managers, much like they do in the private sector, dictate stratification-relevant conditions of work such as task and unit assignments which can negatively impact on African Americans, particularly when forms of segregation are created (Kamarck 2007; Wilson 2006).

PUBLIC SECTOR REFORM AND RACIAL MOBILITY

Theorizing Dynamics of Racial Mobility

Predictions regarding the impact of new governance reform on racial mobility into white collar employment derive from sociological research that analyzes the promotional decision-making and promotion-relevant employment practices of managers within predominantly White owned and managed private sector firms. This research encompasses case studies/treatises (e.g. Dobbin 2009, Fernandez 1981; Collins 1997; Royster 2003; Reskin 2000; Vallas 2003) and survey-based analyses (e.g. Stainback and Tomaskovic-Devey 2012; Maume 1999; Smith 2005; Elliot and Smith 2002; Kalev and Dobbin 2006; McGuire 2000; Nkomo and Cox 1990) and extends the pioneering work of sociologists such as Allport (1954), Pettigrew (1971, 1964), and Blumer (1966) who charted a new “modern” form of discrimination in the American workplace. According to these authors, discrimination is covert and subtle, is based on relatively benign cultural/motivational stereotypes that have strong cultural resonance and permeates all levels of personnel—including key decision-makers--in the workplace; this stands in contrast to a form of discrimination associated with “traditional jim crow” racism, which is relatively overt, based on biological/genetic-based stereotypes and manifests ill-will, malice, and underlying personality defects (see Pettigrew 1971).

The more recent analyses of the private sector deepen our understanding of the dynamics of modern discrimination. Specifically, finding their impetus in more recent formulations such as “laissez-faire racism” (Bobo, Kluegel and Smith 1997) and “color-blind racism” (Bonilla-Silva 2004), they fill out key aspects of the organizational and ideological context in which modern discrimination operates. First, managers are “active agents” (Bielby 2000) and exercise discretion in setting promotion-relevant work conditions and making bottom-line decisions regarding who is promoted with limited bureaucratic constraints and administrative oversight (Kalev 2009; Roscigno 2007). Second, promotion dynamics occur in workplace settings governed by liberal/democratic ideologies encompassing principles of meritocracy and abstract notions of univeralism/liberalism. Overall, against this backdrop and in the context of, for example, “business necessity” associated with the perceived need to achieve “bottom line” financial results, maintain a stable and productive workforce, and with enhanced susceptibility to forms of cognitive bias such as “self-serving attribution bias” (Pettigrew 1985) and “statistical discrimination (Tomaskovic-Devey and Skaggs 1999), employers make promotion decisions that are not discriminatory in intent, but reinforce existing race-based norms of exclusion from top-level positions.

These studies analyzing private sector dynamics also identify a critical institutional source of African Americans’ inferior mobility prospects: their relative difficulty in communicating performance-relevant criteria to employers. In this vein, studies reveal the criteria that impact on promotional decisions are two-fold, “indicators of productivity”, i.e., workplace performance (Stainback and Tomaskovic-Devey 2012), and, “indicators of personality”, i.e., a range of informal traits such as perceived loyalty, trustworthiness, sociability (Smith 2005; Wilson et. al 1999). The failure to communicate these evaluation-relevant criteria, according to these studies, has “pernicious stratification effects” (Wilson 2012), rendering African Americans susceptible to deleterious stereotypes that negatively impact on mobility prospects (Smith 2005).

Finally, a range of studies catalogue how specific employment practices restrict opportunities for African Americans, relative to Whites, to communicate evaluation-relevant criteria to employers. For example, Pettigrew (1985) as well as Braddock and McPartland (1987) argue that allocating African Americans to racially delineated work/task groups as well as the segregated operation of traineeship and internship programs results in reliance on segregated job networks, leaves them prone to attribution bias so that their performance when comparable to Whites’, is devalued because of preexisting cultural/motivational stereotypes about productivity and fitness for hard work. Further, McBrier and Wilson (2004), as well as Nkomo and Cox (1990) assert that African Americans’ assignment to “racialized jobs”, i.e., those involving providing services to predominantly African American customers/clients, across the non-white collar occupational structure, results in “information bias”, a form of statistical discrimination in which employers view the indirectly observable credentials of minorities, such as school performance, and character evaluations, as less credible than similar credentials for Whites. Finally, work in relational demography (e.g., Tsui, Xin, and Egan 1995; Tsui and O’Reilly 1989) suggests that the tendency for African Americans to be subordinated to Whites in authority hierarchies limits “informal interaction” and opportunities to demonstrate “soft skills” such as the ability to relate interpersonally with customers and clients, as well as other personal attributes that signal productivity and reliability to employers.

Expectations

Based on this discussion, there is a compelling basis for predicting that new governance reform should cause African Americans, relative to Whites, to lose the relative parity achieved earlier, in the dynamics of occupational mobility into white collar positions. Specifically, during the reform period, heightened employer discretion both in terms of structuring the organization of work and rendering promotion decisions renders African Americans, compared to Whites, increasingly unable to communicate evaluation-relevant criteria and receive full consideration for promotion. Accordingly, in the public sector, during the reform period, relative to, the pre-reform period:

Incidence

African Americans should experience lower rates of occupational mobility into white collar employment. Conversely, Whites, do not face increased impediments to demonstrating evaluation-relevant characteristics and should experience similar—and relatively high—rates of mobility into white collar employment.