Racial discrimination and the social organization of industries

This study investigates the relationship between several factors of the social organization of labor markets and racial discrimination during the late 1960s. Log-linear models are used to obtain indicators of the relative opportunities of black and white men to obtain different occupations across each of 38 industrial segments. We then examine the nature of the relationship between these indicators of discrimination and a number of aspects of industries suggested to be important by various theories of discrimination. The results indicate that relative black opportunities were favorably influenced by government employment, industrial and white collar (but not craft) unionization, and product market power, and they were adversely influenced by profitability and customer preferences for nonretail sales workers. Of particular interest is the finding that, contrary to the hypothesis derived from neoclassical economics, market power had a positive effect on black opportunities.