The pathway from school to work is not always smooth and linear—for some it is irregular, interrupted, or blocked. In particular, young black men often experience prolonged periods of joblessness, high rates of incarceration, and flattened earnings trajectories. In this project, William T. Grant Scholar Devah Pager investigated the direct and indirect influences of discrimination on the economic outcomes of black youth.

The findings from this two-part research project suggest that black men receive callbacks and job offers at half the rate of equally qualified white men. These findings imply that black applicants must search twice as long—and apply to twice as many jobs—as equally qualified whites. Perhaps most disturbingly, the research also suggested that black men who have never been incarcerated fare no better in the job market than white men just out of prison. A second part of this research considers how black job seekers respond to the reality of labor market discrimination. Economists have assumed that blacks avoid job openings where they would encounter discrimination. By contrast, the investigator noticed that black job seekers, in fact, cast a wider net in their job search than similar whites. This adaptation improved their chances of employment, but was associated with important costs in terms of wages and career coherence.

The first portion of the project measured discrimination in the low-wage labor market using a large-scale field experiment. Matched sets of young men with identical résumés were sent to apply for hundreds of low-wage jobs in New York City. Follow-up interviews with the same set of employers suggest that racial stereotypes remain pervasive. Yet, experiences and attitudes are often out of sync, as employers retain beliefs about black men that appear not to be supported by their own experiences. A second series of studies used a multi-pronged approach to examine the “supply side” of the labor market, investigating the effects of race or perceptions of discrimination on job seekers’ approaches to the job market.

This research will contribute to the broader goal of understanding the prevalence, processes, and consequences of discrimination against young marginalized men.