Gender and racial inequality at work: Changing organizational structures and managerial diversity.

摘要

Despite the impressive inroads that women and minorities have made into the labor market since the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, managerial ranks remain a white man's world. Over the same period, American organizations have undergone rapid and manifold transformations away from the bureaucratic organization of work. Among other changes, they have adopted cross-functional work structures, developed personnel programs that address special needs in lieu of universal treatment, and broken the promise of a lifetime career through routine downsizing. Given that these changes increasingly characterize the contemporary workplace, it is imperative that we understand the opportunities and obstacles they pose for reducing gender and racial inequality. Sociologists of work and organizations have all but overlooked this issue. I therefore ask: How has the move to the post-bureaucratic workplace affected the entrance of women and minorities into management?; To address this question, I use an original dataset that includes annual reports submitted to the EEOC on the workforce demographics of 810 establishments from 1971--2002, merged with retrospective survey data on those establishments' work structures and personnel policies.; I find, first, that changes in the structure of work that reduce job segregation, in particular cross-functional teams and cross-job training, have unintended positive effects on managerial diversity. Second, I find that diversity programs that attempt to reduce managerial bias or social exclusion have little or no effect on women and minorities in management, while programs that create organizational accountability and monitoring have a wide positive effect on managerial diversity. Third, I find that women's and minorities' positions in management are tenuous in the face of downsizing, though using performance evaluations for deciding whom to let go and limiting managers' opportunity for discrimination reduces their vulnerability. Finally, I find that affirmative action oversight played a significant role in increasing the positive effects of diversity management and reducing the negative effects of downsizing on managerial diversity. In all investigations, white women enjoy the most positive effects and black men the least; hence racial boundaries at work are more resilient to change than are gender boundaries. I discuss theoretical and policy implications of my results.