Firm Turnover and the Return of Racial Establishment Segregation

John-Paul  Ferguson; Rembrand  Koning

Article | American Sociological Review | June 2018

Firm Turnover and the Return of Racial Establishment Segregation

by John-Paul Ferguson and Rembrand Koning

Abstract

Racial segregation between American workplaces is greater today than it was a generation ago. This increase has happened alongside the declines in within-establishment occupational segregation on which most prior research has focused. We examine more than 40 years of longitudinal data on the racial employment composition of every large private-sector workplace in the United States to calculate between-establishment and within-establishment trends in racial employment segregation over time. We demonstrate that the return of racial establishment segregation owes little to within-establishment processes but rather stems from differences in the turnover rates of more- and less-homogeneous workplaces. Present research on employment segregation focuses intently on within-firm processes. By doing so, we may be overstating what progress has been made on employment integration and ignoring other avenues of intervention that may give greater leverage for further integrating firms.

Keywords: diversity; firm entry; stratification; segregration; entrepreneurship; Business Ventures; Employees; Diversity; Race; Segmentation; United States;

Format: Print

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Citation:

Ferguson, John-Paul, and Rembrand Koning. "Firm Turnover and the Return of Racial Establishment Segregation." American Sociological Review 83, no. 3 (June 2018): 445–474.

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Firm Turnover and the Return of Racial Establishment Segregation

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