The declining significance of race: Revisited & revised

Daedalus

Volumn 140, Issue 2, 2011, Pages 55-69

  Wilson, William Julius ^a  

^a HARVARD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 79955413537     PISSN: 00115266     EISSN: 15486192     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1162/DAED_a_00077     Document Type: Article

References (47)

1. William Julius Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race: Blacks and Changing American Institutions (1978); 2nd ed., Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980). I would like to thank Anmol Chaddha for his help in reviewing the literature on The Declining Significance of Race and for his thoughtful comments on a previous draft of this manuscript.
2. One notable exception was the pattern of black political subjection imposed by the urban political machines in the early twentieth century. However, although the racial developments in the municipal political system had little or no direct or indirect implications for racial interaction in the private industrial sector, one could argue that the systematic exclusion of African Americans from meaningful political participation was a response to the racial antagonisms generated from the social relations of production. Even if one is willing to concede this argument, it could hardly be said that race relations in the urban political system in turn influenced race relations in the private industrial sector.
3. Robin M. Williams, Jr., "Structure and Process in Ethnic Relations: Increased Knowledge and Unanswered Questions," paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association, Boston, August 30, 1979.
4. See, for example, Michael Hughes and Bradley Hertel, "The Significance of Color Remains: A Study of Life Chances, Mate Selection, and Ethnic Consciousness among Black Americans," Social Forces 68 (4) (1990): 1105-1120.
5. Clarence Lusane, "In Perpetual Motion: The Continuing Significance of Race and America's Drug Crisis" (The University of Chicago Legal Forum, 1994).
6. Michael Hughes and Melvin Thomas, "The Continuing Significance of Race Revisited: A Study of Race, Class, and Quality of Life in America, 1972 to 1996," American Sociological Review 63 (6) (1998): 785-795.
7. Aaron Gullickson, "The Significance of Color Declines: A Re-Analysis of Skin Tone Differentials in Post-Civil Rights America," Social Forces 84 (1) (2005): 157-180.
8. and James Unnever and Francis Cullen, "Reassessing the Racial Divide in Support for Capital Punishment: The Continuing Significance of Race," Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 44 (1) (2007): 124-158.
9. See Joe T. Darden, "The Significance of Race and Class in Residential Segregation," Journal of Urban Affairs 8 (1) (1986): 49-56.
10. Carl Grant, "The Persistent Significance of Race in Schooling," The Elementary School Journal 88 (5) (1988): 561-569.
11. Joe Feagin, "The Continuing Significance of Race: Antiblack Discrimination in Public Places," American Sociological Review 56 (1) (1991): 101-116.
12. and Marvin P. Dawkins and Jomills Henry Braddock, "The Continuing Significance of Desegregation: School Racial Composition and African American Inclusion in American Society," The Journal of Negro Education 63 (3) (1994): 394-405.
13. Jennifer L. Hochschild, Facing Up to the American Dream: Race, Class, and the Soul of the Nation (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1995), 44.
14. Jennifer L. Hochschild, Facing Up to the American Dream: Race, Class, and the Soul of the Nation (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1995), 44.
15. Michael Hout, "Occupational Mobility of Black Men: 1962 to 1973," American Sociological Review 49 (3) (1984): 308-322.
16. See also Peter Blau and Otis Dudley Duncan, The American Occupational Structure (New York: John Wiley, 1967).
17. and David Featherman and Robert Hauser, "Changes in the Socioeconomic Stratification of the Races, 1962-1973," American Journal of Sociology 82 (3) (1976): 621-651.
18. A study by Lee Wolfle reached similar conclusions. Wolfle noted that previous research found that social background variables were more important determinants of educational attainment among whites than among African Americans. However, his study, using data from the National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972, controlled for estimated measurement error structures and found that "social background plays a similar role for whites and blacks. Increments in background social status variables lead to similar increases in educational attainment for whites and blacks. Moreover, the effects of personal characteristics variables (ability, curriculum, grades) of whites and blacks as they influence educational attainment are also similar for both groups"; Lee Wolfle, "Postsecondary Educational Attainment among Whites and Blacks," American Educational Research Journal 22 (4) (1985): 501-525, quote at 501.
19. Also, analyzing a subset of the data used by Michael Hout, Marshall Pomer reported that in contrast to higher-status black men, black men in low-paying occupations were significantly less likely than comparable white men to achieve upward mobility; Marshall I. Pomer, "Labor Market Structure, Intragenerational Mobility, and Discrimination: Black Male Advancement Out of Low-Paying Occupations, 1962-1973," American Sociological Review 51 (1986): 650-659.
20. Arthur Sakamoto and Jessie M. Tzeng, "A Fifty-Year Perspective on the Declining Significance of Race in the Occupational Attainment of White and Black Men," Sociological Perspectives 42 (1999): 160, 174.
21. Arthur Sakamoto and Jessie M. Tzeng, "A Fifty-Year Perspective on the Declining Significance of Race in the Occupational Attainment of White and Black Men," Sociological Perspectives 42 (1999), 161.
22. The authors state: "We restrict the analyses to native-born, noninstitutionalized white and black men aged 25 to 64 who were not enrolled in school and who participated in the labor force at the time of the census. Because most women did not work in the paid labor market in 1940 (Bianchi and Spain, 1986: 141 [Suzanne M. Bianchi and Daphne Spain, American Women in Transition (New York: Russell Sage, 1986)]) and because Wilson's (1980) discussion of labor market trends focuses on men, we do not include women in our analyses. The 1940 pums provides systematic empirical evidence about the net racial disadvantage during the industrial period while the 1990 pums provides systematic empirical evidence about the net racial disadvantage during the modern industrial period."
23. Arthur Sakamoto and Jessie M. Tzeng, "A Fifty-Year Perspective on the Declining Significance of Race in the Occupational Attainment of White and Black Men," Sociological Perspectives 42 (1999), 174.
24. Arthur Sakamoto and Jessie M. Tzeng, "A Fifty-Year Perspective on the Declining Significance of Race in the Occupational Attainment of White and Black Men," Sociological Perspectives 42 (1999), 174-175.
25. Hout, "Occupational Mobility of Black Men," 308.
26. Melvin E. Thomas, "Race, Class, and Personal Income: An Empirical Test of the Declining Significance of Race Thesis, 1968-1988," Social Problems 40 (3) (1993): 328.
27. Clifton R. Wharton, Jr., "Education and Black Americans: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow," paper presented at the New York State Black and Puerto Rican Legislative Caucus, Inc., and New York State Conference of Branches, naacp, February 19, 1978.
28. In Soo Son, Suzanne W. Model, and Gene A. Fisher, "Polarization and Progress in the Black Community: Earnings and Status Gains for Young Black Males in the Era of Affirmative Action," Sociological Forum 4 (3) (1989): 309, 311, 324.
29. In Soo Son, Suzanne W. Model, and Gene A. Fisher, "Polarization and Progress in the Black Community: Earnings and Status Gains for Young Black Males in the Era of Affirmative Action," Sociological Forum 4 (3) (1989), 323.
30. In Soo Son, Suzanne W. Model, and Gene A. Fisher, "Polarization and Progress in the Black Community: Earnings and Status Gains for Young Black Males in the Era of Affirmative Action," Sociological Forum 4 (3) (1989), 325.
31. Pomer, "Labor Market Structure, Intragenerational Mobility, and Discrimination," 657.
32. A. Silvia Cancio, T. David Evans, and David J. Maume, Jr., "Reconsidering the Declining Significance of Race: Racial Differences in Early Career Wages," American Sociological Review 61 (4) (1996): 541, 543.
33. A. Silvia Cancio, T. David Evans, and David J. Maume, Jr., "Reconsidering the Declining Significance of Race: Racial Differences in Early Career Wages," American Sociological Review 61 (4) (1996), 554.
34. Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race, 2nd ed., 178.
35. Cancio, Evans, and Maume, "Reconsidering the Declining Significance of Race," 554.
36. Cancio, Evans, and Maume, "Reconsidering the Declining Significance of Race," 554.
37. The income ratios reported here are based on an analysis of Current Population Survey microdata. To draw comparisons with the data I reported in the second edition of The Declining Significance of Race, I used the "white/black" designation, instead of "non-Hispanic white and non-Hispanic black" designation. There are only slight differences between the percentages for the two different designations; thus, the trends reported and conclusions reached would not have changed.
38. Theodore J. Davis, "The Occupational Mobility of Black Males Revisited: Does Race Matter?" The Social Science Journal 32 (2) (1995): 121-135.
39. U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, 2008 Annual Social and Economic Supplement, Table pov28, "Income and Deficit or Surplus of Families and Unrelated Individuals by Poverty Status: 2007."
40. By comparison, poor non-Hispanic white families fell below the poverty line by an average of $7,957; poor Hispanic families by $8,611; and poor Asian families by $8,959; U.S. Census Bureau, Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2007, Current Population Reports P60-235, Table 4, "People with Income Below Specified Ratios of Their Poverty Thresholds by Selected Characteristics: 2007."
41. Lance Freeman, "Is Class Becoming a More Important Determinant of Neighborhood Attainment for African-Americans?" Urban Affairs Review 44 (1) (2008): 3.
42. Lance Freeman, "Is Class Becoming a More Important Determinant of Neighborhood Attainment for African-Americans?" Urban Affairs Review 44 (1) (2008), 24.
43. William Julius Wilson, More than Just Race: Being Black and Poor in the Inner City (New York: W.W. Norton, 2009).
44. Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race, 2nd ed., 179.
45. Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race, 2nd ed., 182.
46. Jonathan Rieder, Canarsie: The Jews and Italians of Brooklyn Against Liberalism (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1985), 101.
47. Ratio calculations based on data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Table A-2, "Employment Status of the Civilian Population by Race, Sex, and Age," December 3, 2010.