Employment and Occupational Advance Under Affirmative Action

Abstract

Affirmative Action is not only supposed to help move minorities and females into employment, it is also supposed to help move them up the job ladder, and it is this second goal that is perhaps the more controversial. Studies of Affirmative Action during thel ate 1960's and early 1910's found it generally ineffective in the white-collar and skilled occupations. Using disaggregated employment data in a new sample of nearly 10,000 establishments,this study finds that Affirmative Action was generally successful during the late 1910's in increasing minority employment in skilled white-collar occupations as well as in unskilled jobs.