According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission(EEOC), African-Americans had a significant increase in participation in different job categories between the 1970’s and 1990’s, however, this participation slowed for several categories and declined in 2013 for categories such as Officials, Managers and Professionals.  Here are a few data points:

  • Between 1966 and 2013, African Americans realized the greatest increase in participation in the Office and Clerical Workers category, from 3.53 percent to 15.76 percent; 12.23 percentage points.
  • African Americans in the Laborers category showed the least change in participation during this time frame. The rate decreased 2.44 percentage points, from 21.13 percent in 1966 to 18.69 percent in 2013.

These statistics are alarming.  My analysis of other government data has also found that black workers are underrepresented compared to whites in high-salary jobs such as technology, business, life sciences, architecture, engineering, and among other areas. Instead, many black workers find jobs in low-wage, less-prestigious fields such as food service or preparation, building maintenance and office work, where they are overrepresented.  This supports the data that the EEOC collects.

The real question we all must ask ourselves is, why aren’t African Americans getting these roles? My assumption would be that there must be less African Americans going to school for these roles?  Well, in an economy that increasingly demands advanced degrees, Department of Education data shows that black representation among graduates in science, technology, engineering and mathematics peaked at 9.9 percent in 2010 and has been slowly declining. One would think this number should be increasing yearly rather than declining. Or, is it that African Americans with advanced degrees in STEM still don’t get the opportunities as their white counterparts?

I’ve spoken with many African Americans in my network and many have shared that they are the only African American on their team.  If they are in technology and in a management or above position, many feel their voices aren’t heard when it came to doing something  about the lack of diversity on their teams and in the company. As an African American man in corporate America, I’ve learned from my personal experience along with talking with my network that there are many African Americans that are well educated but aren’t getting opportunities. Instead it seems as if corporate America continues to do the same thing they did before with little to no results. For instance, corporate America would rather hire a white salesperson with sales experience than to spend the time to seek a minority candidate with qualifications for the role. Both people would have a 50/50 chance to succeed in the role but I’d bet that the minority candidate with the qualification and little experience, if given the chance, would perform much better than the person who has been in sales the majority of their lives, has gone from company to company and looks and talks the same as the others. The reason I would bet on the minority candidate is because I am the minority candidate.

Corporations and their leaders can do more, but they choose not to. Let’s face it, structural discrimination is the main cause of disproportionate race representation in high-paying fields. Now, there could be many other reasons for it, some of this being:

  • Substandard schools in low-income neighborhoods.
  • White-dominated office cliques. 
  • Boardrooms that prefer familiarity to diversity.
  • Discriminatory hiring practices.
  • Companies that claim a lack of qualified candidates but have no programs to train minority talent.

And despite notable progress in diversity and inclusion in the workplace over the past half century, this data highlights continued job segregation by race and gender, with women and people of color disproportionately occupying lower paying positions.

For instance, the participation rates for African-American officials and managers, which was just 0.87% in 1966, reached a height of 6.94% in 2008 before slipping to 6.77% in 2013. Similarly, the rate for professionals, which was 1.32% in 1966, reached a height of 7.75% in 2008 and dipped to 7.6% in 2013.

Among other results, Hispanics saw increased participation rates across all job categories from 1966 to 2013, while Asian Americans saw consistent increases in participation during the period. Despite the increases of job participation amongst Hispanic and Asian Americans, American Indians or Alaska natives experienced less than 1% participation rate in each of the categories except for those in the service workers category in 1984. Also the participation rate for women fluctuated by category in the same period.

 

BH Question:

Should we be concerned?