The individual-level explanations for labor market disparities state that “the earnings gap is due to individual human capital differences” (Golash-Boza 252). For instance, if black men hold a higher degree of education, then black men are assumed to have higher incomes than less educated white men. Yet, this is not the case in real world. According to Golash-Boza, “in 2000, 32 percent of white men had completed college, compared with only 18 percent of black men” (Golash-Boza 252), and this trend is still in effect. Continuous studies by socialists specializing their studies in the earnings gap found that even with factors that explain the individual-level characteristics such as age, education and occupation, black men of the same individual-level
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For example, I have a personal experience in witnessing shifting standards at my old work. I worked as a waitress at a restaurant and saw the hiring process of servers and dishwashers. One time, a white woman came in to submit an application for a dishwashing job. After a brief interview with that applicant, she was hired as a server instead of a dishwasher. When I asked my boss why she hired the applicant as a server when the applicant submitted the application of a dishwashing job, my boss told me that the applicant would be a better fit as a server. That statement made me wonder what makes one to fit as a server and not as a dishwasher. On top of my boss’ statement, most of the dishwashers at the work were Mexican Americans at the time I worked there. I think this was an example of race-based job channeling. Though employers in the audit studies may have had unconscious bias towards nonwhites, both the statistics found in the study and results from audit studies clearly show that racial discrimination plays a big factor in individual-level explanation names (Golash-Boza …show more content…
Unlike the individual-level explanation, the structural explanations state the disparities as results of larger structures such as deindustrialization. For instance, because deindustrialization resulted in decreased a manufacturing economy to a service economy, decrease in the low-skilled workers’ incomes was inevitable. One of the best known example of structural explanations for labor market disparities apply to black men in 1980s. Because most of the factory workers were composed of black men at the time, they were also the group that was mostly affected by deindustrialization. Progress of deindustrialization led the markets to shift to new technologies that replaced low-skilled laborers, increase in individuals’ level of education that led to increase in high-skilled laborers and increase in international trade that provided jobs outside of the United States (Golash-Boza 257). Since black men losing their jobs was just a misfortunate happening due to economic shift, the structural explanations of labor market disparities provide the idea of skills mismatch hypothesis. According to skills mismatch hypothesis, low employment rate for black men is results of “many African Americans live in areas where there has been a reduction in work for low-skilled workers” (Golash-Boza
For example, I have a personal experience in witnessing shifting standards at my old work. I worked as a waitress at a restaurant and saw the hiring process of servers and dishwashers. One time, a white woman came in to submit an application for a dishwashing job. After a brief interview with that applicant, she was hired as a server instead of a dishwasher. When I asked my boss why she hired the applicant as a server when the applicant submitted the application of a dishwashing job, my boss told me that the applicant would be a better fit as a server. That statement made me wonder what makes one to fit as a server and not as a dishwasher. On top of my boss’ statement, most of the dishwashers at the work were Mexican Americans at the time I worked there. I think this was an example of race-based job channeling. Though employers in the audit studies may have had unconscious bias towards nonwhites, both the statistics found in the study and results from audit studies clearly show that racial discrimination plays a big factor in individual-level explanation names (Golash-Boza …show more content…
Unlike the individual-level explanation, the structural explanations state the disparities as results of larger structures such as deindustrialization. For instance, because deindustrialization resulted in decreased a manufacturing economy to a service economy, decrease in the low-skilled workers’ incomes was inevitable. One of the best known example of structural explanations for labor market disparities apply to black men in 1980s. Because most of the factory workers were composed of black men at the time, they were also the group that was mostly affected by deindustrialization. Progress of deindustrialization led the markets to shift to new technologies that replaced low-skilled laborers, increase in individuals’ level of education that led to increase in high-skilled laborers and increase in international trade that provided jobs outside of the United States (Golash-Boza 257). Since black men losing their jobs was just a misfortunate happening due to economic shift, the structural explanations of labor market disparities provide the idea of skills mismatch hypothesis. According to skills mismatch hypothesis, low employment rate for black men is results of “many African Americans live in areas where there has been a reduction in work for low-skilled workers” (Golash-Boza