Skills Shifts and Black Male Joblessness in Major Urban Labor Markets over the 1980's

• Published in: Social science research Vol. 29; no. 3; pp. 327 - 355
• Main Author: Simpson, Patricia Alice
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: San Diego, Calif Elsevier Inc 01-09-2000; Academic Press, Inc; Academic Press
• Subjects: Black people; Blacks; Employment Changes; Labor Force Participation; Labor Market; Labour market; Males; Men; Race; Skills; Social conditions & trends; U.S.A; Unemployment; Urban Areas; Urban sociology; Urban unemployment; Work Skills
• ISSN: 0049-089X; 1096-0317
• DOI: 10.1006/ssre.1999.0672

This study employs Census and related government data bases to analyze the effects of skills shifts on black male joblessness over the 1980's. Adapting skills mismatch and racial typing models, the author formulates conceptual arguments in support of the expectation that skills shifts contributed to a decline in relative demand for black males in major metropolitan labor markets in the 1980's. Innovative direct measures of within-occupation and compositional sources of skills change were developed and then applied to a series of OLS regression and decomposition analyses. Results indicated that skills shifts did have a uniquely negative impact on employment-to-population ratios for less educated black males. Further, deskilling in manual skills dimensions and upskilling in authority requirements within local labor markets decreased employment levels across all black male educational strata. In contrast to expectations, however, upskilling in substantive complexity had positive effects on black male employment-to-population ratios.