How Minorities Continue to Be Excluded from Equal Employment Opportunities: Research on Labor Market and Institutional Barriers

Abstract

Barriers to equal occupational opportunities for minorities are examined at three stages of the employment process: the job candidate stage, the job entry stage, and the job promotion stage. Using the authors' recent survey of 4078 employers covering a nationally representative sample of jobs, four types of exclusionary barriers are investigated: “segregated networks” at the candidate stage, “information bias” and “statistical discrimination” at the entry stage, and “closed internal markets” at the promotion stage. Practical implications are drawn for equal employment opportunity policies directed toward occupational processes and employment outcomes.