Cedric Herring

Does Diversity Pay?: Race, Gender, and the Business Case for Diversity

The value-in-diversity perspective argues that a diverse workforce, relative to a homogeneous one, is generally beneficial for business, including but not limited to corporate profits and earnings. This is in contrast to other accounts that view diversity as either nonconsequential to business success or actually detrimental by creating conflict, undermining cohesion, and thus decreasing productivity. Using data from the 1996 to 1997 National Organizations Survey, a national sample of for-profit business organizations, this article tests eight hypotheses derived from the value-in-diversity thesis. The results support seven of these hypotheses: racial diversity is associated with increased sales revenue, more customers, greater market share, and greater relative profits. Gender diversity is associated with increased sales revenue, more customers, and greater relative profits. I discuss the implications of these findings relative to alternative views of diversity in the workplace.

Ethnicity and Entrepreneurship in America: Toward an Explanation of Racial and Ethnic Group Variations in Self-Employment

Using data from the 1983–1987 General Social Surveys, this paper investigates the degree to which being self-employed is more prevalent within certain racial and ethnic groups than others. Those of Jewish ancestry were more likely than others to be self-employed; those from “racial” ethnic groups were generally less likely than white ethnics to be self-employed. In addition, being older, more educated, from a higher-income family, male, from the South, non-Catholic, and having a self-employed father also increased ones likelihood of being self-employed. A stratified analysis separately examining the effects among the offspring of the self-employed and others revealed that, among the progeny of the self-employed, those of African, English, Hispanic, and Asian descent were less likely to be self-employed. Among those whose fathers were not self-employed, only Jewish respondents were significantly more likely be self-employed, and those of African descent and Polish descent were less likely to be self-employed. The implications of these findings for research on ethnic entrepreneurship are discussed.

Discrimination over the life course: a synthetic cohort analysis of earnings differences between black and white males, 1940-1990

Using data from the 1940-1980 United States Microdata Extract File and the Current Population Surveys 1990 Annual Demographic File, this study examines three competing explanations of the disparity in black and white male earnings over the life course. The “legacy of discrimination” explanation suggests that current racial disparities in earnings reflect nothing more than past discrimination against older blacks, and that the earnings of younger black and white males should be similar over the life course. The “cumulative effects of discrimination” explanation suggests that the black-white earnings gap increases over the life course, and that this divergence in earnings exists for younger cohorts of males as well as older cohorts. The “vintage hypothesis” argues that the net black-white earnings gap reflects differences in self-investments in human capital and that the racial earnings gap should be virtually constant over time and over the life course for all cohorts (vintages) of black and white male workers. This study presents a synthetic cohort analysis of the effects of aging on the disparity in earnings for black and white males from 1940-1990. It shows that aging has a curvilinear effect on the black-white earnings gap. Younger black males in each year and cohort analyzed were closer to their white male counterparts than middle-aged blacks. However, there was a convergence in the earnings of elderly black and white males. While not completely consistent with any of the formulations, the findings most closely conform to the predictions of the cumulative effect of discrimination explanation.

From Affirmative Action to Diversity: Toward a Critical Diversity Perspective

This article provides an overview of changes in the discourse about inclusion as it has evolved from debates about affirmative action to various notions of diversity. The article seeks movement away from ‘colorblind diversity’ and ‘segregated diversity’ toward a ‘critical diversity’ that examines all forms of social inequality, oppression, and stratification that revolve around issues of difference. It lays out concrete strategies for doing so: (1) target goods and resources to excluded people; (2) advocate an expansive notion of diversity, but seek out distributive justice that will serve to assist ‘disprivileged’ groups; (3) shift resources away from privileged groups, especially when invoking the rhetoric of diversity; (4) reconnect diversity to affirmative action and the need to offset historical and ongoing racial and gender discrimination, segregation, and bias; (5) remind people that diversity is consistent with legal compliance; and (6) demonstrate to organizational members that diversity is institutionally beneficial.

Lost in the storm : The sociology of the black working class, 1850 to 1990

Contemporary sociologists implicitly have assumed that the race-class debate has been resolved: Blacks tend to fall in one of two categories - the black middle class or the truly disadvantaged. However, lost amid the controversies over the supposed privileges of the former and the problems of the latter is the plight of the forgotten category of blacks: the black working class. Accordingly, we present a sociological analysis of the black working class and ask: How has the black working class changed compared to its white counterpart from 1850 to 1990? Employing the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) for our analysis, we find that for the last five decades blacks are more likely to be working class than middle class or bottom class. In addition, blacks currently are more likely to be working class than are whites. In fact, in recent decades the percentage of blacks who are working class exceeds those for whites and, indeed, are higher than ever recorded for whites

Rural-Urban Differences in Black Family Structure An Analysis of the 1990 Census

The nature and structure of the African American family continues to be a topic of importance in sociology. Since the much-maligned Moynihan report of the 1960s, sociologists have linked Black family structure to persisting disadvantage. However, the overwhelming majority of past studies have focused on the urban Black family. Accordingly, this article employs data from the 1990 Public Use Microdata Samples to compare the rural African American family to its urban counterpart. Results from the logistic regression analysis reveal that for rural Blacks, family structure is less important than community type and race relative to poverty status. These findings suggest a need for a refinement of the underclass debate.

HURRICANE KATRINA AND THE RACIAL GULF: A Du Boisian Analysis of Victims' Experiences

Americans like to believe that “we are all in the same boat” when disaster strikes. Using a Du Boisian framework, this article provides a multivariate analysis of survey data from victims of Hurricane Katrina to determine whether there were racial differences in their perceptions about rescue and relief efforts. The data collected from survivors show that Blacks and Whites drew very different lessons from the tragedy. There was widespread agreement among Black survivors that the governments response to the crisis would have been faster if most of the storms victims had been White. Whites, in contrast, were more likely to feel that the race of the victims did not make a difference in the governments response. Less than half of White victims, but more than three-quarters of Black victims, held that Hurricane Katrina pointed out persisting problems of racial inequality. There were, however, few racial differences in perceptions about the role of income in the aftermath of Katrina. Most Blacks and Whites agreed with the idea that low-income and middle-income victims of the hurricane received similar treatment. But when asked a similar question about the role of race, racial differences reemerged. Also, rather than this being a difference of opinion only between poor Blacks and middle-class Whites, these results suggest that there were also differences between the lowest-income Blacks and middle-income Blacks and perhaps an even larger difference between middle-income Blacks and middle-income Whites in terms of how they viewed the governments response. Income and other sociodemographic differences did not explain racial differences in perceptions about the role of race in the aftermath of the hurricane. The article concludes that the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina exposed the wide gulf between the nations haves and have-nots as well as the nations persistent racial divide.

Does race matter? The determinants and consequences of self-reports of discrimination victimization

Abstract Few empirical investigations have explored the determinants of discrimination. Even more rare are studies that explicitly link reports of discrimination to harmful consequences. This article investigates the determinants and consequences of self-reports of discrimination victimization. It addresses how likely different kinds of people are to say that they have been the victims of discrimination. After estimating who is likely to report being victimized by discrimination, the article presents estimates of the relationship of self-reports of discrimination victimization to the earnings of different social groups. Results indicate that African Americans, Latinos, and immigrants report being victimized more frequently than whites with rates that exceed twice the national average. For African Americans, the “cost” of felt discrimination exceeds

Does critical diversity pay in higher education? Race, gender, and departmental rankings in research universities

6,200; for Latinos, the “cost” exceeds

Racial Differences in the Perception of Racial Equality in the Obama Era

11,300. Such findings suggest that reports of discrimination are not just the product of the imaginations of overly sensitive, raceconscious, victim-minded individuals. Rather, these reports appear to represent real experiences that negatively and demonstrably impact the quality of their lives.