Evaluating Gains and Losses by Black and White Women and Men in the Professions, 1960-1980

This paper examines the progress of black and white women and black men in the white, male dominated professions between 1960 and 1980 using census data made comparable across years. While general statistics lead to the conclusion that white men lost and black men, white women and black women gained in the professions over this 20-year period, disaggregated data and an index of representation lead us to challenge these conclusions. While people in disadvantaged race/gender categories moved toward greater equality of representation with white men in the professions between 1960 and 1980, the degree of movement and final outcome is highly questionable in the male dominated professions. Black women and men did show significant improvements in the expanding neutral professions. Although white women dramatically declined in their overrepresentation in female dominated professions, they did not show a commensurate increase in male dominated professions. Black men appear to have made the greatest gains of all people in the three disadvantaged race/gender categories in the professional labor force between 1960 and 1980, but these findings overestimate the progress of black men because of their sharp decline in the labor force as a whole