Mode of job entry and the ethnic composition of firms: Early twentieth-century migrants to New York City

Until relatively recently racial and ethnic minorities were concentrated in particular economic niches. This paper explores the hypothesis that one mechanism that facilitated the maintenance of such niches was for employers to accept referrals from existing employees of particular ethnic backgrounds. This hypothesis is pursued through an analysis of job histories obtained from forty-five elderly black, Italian, and Jewish migrants to New York. The results indicate racial differences in the way that respondents obtained jobs. Moreover, the relationship between means of entry and the minority of composition of firms varied across all three groups.