Race and the Invisible Hand

How White Networks Exclude Black Men from Blue-Collar Jobs

Deirdre Royster

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Year: 2003
• Print ISBN: 9780520239517
• eBook ISBN: 9780520937376
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Labour Economics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

From the time of Booker T. Washington to today, and William Julius Wilson, the advice dispensed to young black men has invariably been, "Get a trade." Deirdre Royster has put this folk wisdom to an empirical test—and, in Race and the Invisible Hand, exposes the subtleties and discrepancies of a workplace that favors the white job-seeker over the black. At the heart of this study is the question: Is there something about young black men that makes them less desirable as workers than their white peers? And if not, then why do black men trail white men in earnings and employment rates? Royster seeks an answer in the experiences of 25 black and 25 white men who graduated from the same vocational school and sought jobs in the same blue-collar labor market in the early 1990s. After seriously examining the educational performances, work ethics, and values of the black men for unique deficiencies, her study reveals the greatest difference between young black and white men—access to the kinds of contacts that really help in the job search and entry process.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• 1. Introduction
• 2. “Invisible” and Visible Hands: Racial Disparity in the Labor Market
• 3. From School to Work...In Black and White: A Case Study
• 4. Getting a Job, Not Getting a Job: Employment Divergence Begins
• 5. Evaluating Market Explanations: The Declining Significance of Race and Racial Deficits Approaches
• 6. Embedded Transitions: School Ties and the Unanticipated Significance of Race
• 7. Networks of Inclusion, Networks of Exclusion: The Production and Maintenance of Segregated Opportunity Structures
• 8. White Privilege and Black Accommodation: Where Past and Contemporary Discrimination Converge
• Appendix: Subjects’ Occupations at the Time of the Study
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index