Publications by Author

Barbara Reskin

Research

Harper, S.; Reskin, B., (2005), Affirmative Action in School and on the Job, Annual Review of Sociology, 31.

Affirmative action (AA) addresses individuals' exclusion from opportunities based on group membership by taking into account race, sex, ethnicity, and other characteristics. This chapter reviews sociological, economic, historical, and legal scholarship on AA. We first consider the emergence of group-based remedies, how protected groups are defined, and proportional representation as a standard for inclusion. We then summarize the research on AA in education (including busing) and in employment. The concluding section reviews societal responses to AA, including attitudes, challenges, and political responses. As public and judicial support for AA has waned, employers and educators have increasingly turned toward diversity as a rationale for including underrepresented groups. Despite this change, many employers and educators continue to take positive steps to include minorities and women.

Reskin, B., (2005), Unconsciousness Raising: Women's Underrepresentation in Top-Level Jobs, Regional Review, 14: 3, 32-37.

An abstract for this article is not available.

Reskin, B.; Bielby, D., (2005), A Sociological Perspective on Gender and Career Outcomes, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 19: Winter, 71-86.

Both economists and sociologists have documented the association between gender and career outcomes. Men are more likely than women to participate in the labor force, and men average more hours of paid labor per week and more weeks per year. Women and men tend to hold different occupations and to work in different industries, firms and jobs. Furthermore, men outearn women, hold more complex jobs and are more likely to supervise workers of the other sex and to dominate the top positions in their organization. The challenge for both disciplines lies not in showing that gender is linked to employment outcomes, but in explaining the associations. Sex segregation across jobs reflects the long-standing association between workers' sex and their careers, and it is the primary mechanism through which workers' sex is associated with other career outcomes, such as earnings, job authority and promotion chances.

Reskin, Barbara. (2003) Including Mechanisms in Our Models of Ascriptive Inequality. American Sociological Review 68(1):1-21.

Sociologists' principal contribution to our understanding of ascriptive inequality has been to document race and sex disparities. We have made little headway, however, in explaining these disparities because most research has sought to explain variation across ascriptive groups in more or less desirable outcomes in terms of allocators' motives. This approach has been inconclusive because motive-based theories cannot be empirically tested. Our reliance on individual-level data and the balkanization of research on ascriptive inequality into separate specialties for groups defined by different ascriptive characteristics have contributed to our explanatory stalemate. Explanation requires including mechanisms in our models-the specific processes that link groups' ascribed characteristics to variable outcomes such as earnings. I discuss mechanisms that contribute to variation in ascriptive inequality at four levels of analysis-intrapsychic, interpersonal, societal, and organizational. Redirecting our attention from motives to mechanisms is essential for understanding inequality and-equally important-for contributing meaningfully to social policies that will promote social equality.

Padavic, Irene and Barbara F. Reskin. (2002). Women and Men at Work (2nd ed.) Pine Forge Press.

The Second Edition of this best selling book provides a comprehensive examination of the role that gender plays in work environments. This book differs from others by comparing women’s and men’s work status, addressing contemporary issues within a historical perspective, incorporating comparative material from other countries, recognizing differences in the experiences of women and men from different racial and ethnic backgrounds. Relying on both qualitative and quantitative data, the authors seek to link social scientific ideas about workers’ lives, sex inequality, and gender to the real-world workplace. This new edition contains updated statistics, timely cartoons, and presents new scholarship in the field. It also provides a renewed focus on reasons for variability in inequality across workplaces. In sum, the second edition of Women and Men at Work presents a contemporary perspective to the field, with relevant comparative and historical insights that will draw readers in and connect them to the wider concern of making sense of our dramatically changing world.

Reskin, Barbara. (2002). "Rethinking Employment Discrimination." Pp. 218-44 in Mauro F. Guillen, Randall Collins, Paula England, and Marshall Meyer (eds.). The New Economic Sociology: Developments in an Emerging Field. N.Y.: Russell Sage.

An abstract for this article is not available.

Reskin, Barbara. (2001). "Discrimination and Its Remedies." Pp. 567-600 in Ivar Berg and Arne Kalleberg (eds.), Sourcebook on Labor Market Research: Evolving Structures and Processes. N.Y.: Plenum.

An abstract for this article is not available.

Reskin, Barbara. (2001). "Sex Segregation at Work." Pp. 13962-13965 in N. J. Smelser and Paul B. Baltes (editors), International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Oxford: Pergamon.

An abstract for this article is not available.

Reskin, Barbara. "Sex Stereotyping and Sex Bias in Employment." Pp. 1891-92 in Cheris Kramarae and Dale Spender (eds.), Routledge International Encyclopedia of Women’s Studies. N.Y.: Routledge, vol. 4.

An abstract for this article is not available.

Cassirer, Naomi and Barbara Reskin, (2000). High Hopes: Organizational Location, Employment Experiences, and Women's and Men's Promotion Aspirations. Work and Occupations, 27,438-63.

Kanter argued that men's and women's positions in workplace opportunity structures, not their sex, shape their career attitudes. Women attached less importance to promotion than men, according to 1991 General Social Survey data. The authors examine the extent to which this difference stems from the sexes' segregation into jobs with unequal opportunities, as Kanter argued. The findings are largely consistent with Kanter's thesis: Men attached greater importance to promotion than women because they were more likely to be located in organizational positions that encourage workers to hope for a promotion. Net of the effects of workers' organizational locations and prior promotion by their employer, sex was not associated with promotion attitudes.

Kalleberg, Arne, Barbara Reskin, and Ken Hudson. (2000). Bad Jobs in America: Standard and Nonstandard Employment Relations and Job Quality in the United States. American Sociological Review, 65, 256-78.

The prevalence of nonstandard jobs is a matter of concern if, as many assume, such jobs are bad. We examine the relationship between nonstandard employment (on-call work and day labor, temporary-help agency employment, employment with contract companies, independent contracting, other self-employment, and part-time employment in "conventional" jobs) and exposure to "bad" job characteristics, using data from the 1995 Current Population Survey. Of workers age 18 and over, 31 percent are in some type of nonstandard employment. To assess the link between type of employment and bad jobs, we conceptualize "bad jobs" as those with low pay and without access to health insurance and pension benefits. About one in seven jobs in the United States is bad on these three dimensions. Nonstandard employment strongly increases workers' exposure to bad job characteristics, net of controls for workers' personal characteristics, family status, occupation, and industry.

Reskin, Barbara. (2000). Getting It Right: Sex and Race Inequality in Work Organizations. Annual Review of Sociology, 26,707-09.

An abstract for this article is not available.

Reskin, Barbara and Debra McBrier. (2000). Why Not Ascription? Organizations’ Employment of Male and Female Managers. American Sociological Review, 65, 210-33.

We examine the effects of organizations' employment practices on sex- based ascription in managerial jobs. Given men's initial preponderance in management, we argue that inertia, sex labels, and power dynamics predispose organizations to use sex-based ascription when staffing managerial jobs, but that personnel practices can invite or curtail ascription. Our results-based on data from a national probability sample of 516 work organizations-show that specific personnel practices affect the sexual division of managerial labor. Net of controls for the composition of the labor supply, open recruitment methods are associated with women holding a greater share of management jobs, while recruitment through informal networks increases men's share. Formalizing personnel practices reduces men's share of management jobs, especially in large establishments, presumably because formalization checks ascription in job assignments, evaluation, and factors that affect attrition. Thus, through their personnel practices, establishments license or limit ascription.

Reskin, Barbara. (2000). "Work and Occupations." Pp. 3261-69 in Edgar F. Borgatta and Rhonda J. V. Montgomery (eds.), International Encyclopedia of Sociology, 2nd ed. N.Y.: MacMillan.

An abstract for this article is not available.

Reskin, Barbara. (2000). The Proximate Causes of Discrimination: Research Agenda for the Twenty-First Century. Contemporary Sociology, 29, 319-29.

Reskin argues that the standard sociological approaches to explaining workplace discrimination have not been very fruitful in producing knowledge that can be used to eradicate job discrimination. If sociological research is to contribute to the battle against injustice, more attention needs to be directed to how inequality is produced.

Reskin, Barbara. (2000). "Sex Segregation" and "Sex Stratification." In Encyclopedia of Psychology. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association and Oxford University Press. 2000.

An abstract for this publication is not available.

Reskin, Barbara F. (1999). "Racial and Ethnic Occupational Segregation among Women." Pp. 183-204 in Latinas and African American Women in the Labor Market, edited by I. Browne. N.Y.: Russell Sage.

An abstract for this article is not available.

Reskin, Barbara F. and Camille Z. Charles. (1999). "Now You See ‘Em, Now You Don’t: Theoretical Approaches to Race and Gender in Labor Markets." Pp. 380-407 in Latinas and African American Women in the Labor Market, edited by Irene Browne. N.Y.: Russell Sage.

An abstract for this article is not available.

Reskin, Barbara and Irene Padavic. (1999). "Sex, Race, and Ethnic Inequality in United States Workplaces." Pp. 343-74 in Janet S. Chafetz (ed.), Handbook of Gender Research. N.Y.: Plenum.

An abstract for this article is not available.

Reskin, Barbara, Debra McBrier, and Julie Kmec. (1999). The Determinants and Consequences of the Sex and Race Composition of Work Organizations. Annual Review of Sociology, 25, 335-61.

This chapter reviews research on the determinants and consequences of race and sex composition of organizations. Determinants include the composition of the qualified labor supply; employers' preferences, including the qualifications they require; the response of majority groups; and an establishment's attractiveness, size, and recruiting methods. The race and sex composition of an establishment affects workers' cross-group contact; stress, satisfaction, and turnover; cohesion; stereotyping; and evaluation. Composition also affects organizations themselves, including their performance, hiring and promotion practices, levels of job segregation, and wages and benefits. Theory-driven research is needed (a) on the causal mechanisms that underlie the relationships between organizational composition and its determinants and consequences and (b) on the form of the relationships between organizational composition and workers outcomes (e.g., cross-group contact, cohesion, turnover, etc). Research is needed on race and ethnic composition, with a special focus on the joint effects of race and sex.