Occupational and Residential Segregation: The Confluence of Two Systems of Inequality

This study considers whether the social organization of the metropolitan area in which black and white men and women prepare for the labor market during youth affects their likelihood to work in occupations overrepresented by blacks or whites as adults. Findings based on the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, census data, and regression analysis suggest that residential segregation affects the likelihood that whites will be segregated from blacks into better-paying occupations that are overrepresented by other whites in the labor market. Furthermore, black women who lived in more segregated cities during their youth are more likely to be concentrated into typically lower-paying occupations overrepresented by other black women and are less likely to work in typically white male occupations that tend to be better remunerated.