This chapter is concerned with understanding how race and race relations influence career dynamics. Statistics on the occupational status of racial minority groups suggest that race is a strong predictor of position in the labor market and career patterns. According to U.S. 1983 Census Bureau statistics, blacks made up 4.7% of U.S. executives, administrators and managers, and Hispanics constituted 2.8% of this group. The majority of people from both ethnic groups in this job category are located in the public sector. In 1980, the unemployment rate for racial minorities was twice that of whites. The median family income of blacks in 1980 was 57% that of whites. Studies of upward mobility show that white males in low-paying positions are significantly more likely than minority males to advance to positions that pay a middle-class wage (Pomer, 1986). According to a U.S. Commission on Civil Rights report (1980), Asian Americans are underrepresented in managerial and administrative occupations, while they are represented in professional positions at a higher rate than in the population at large.

Since the passage of the U.S. Civil Rights Act in 1964, behavioral science has looked at the relationships between race and work through a number of disciplinary lenses, especially those of economics, sociology and psychology. Economics has focused on issues of pay and labor market activity and sociology on the related issues of status attainment and stratification. These literatures constitute a significant and well-developed body of theory about discrimination (Almquist, 1979; Lester, 1980; Lundahl and Wadensjo, 1984; Pascal, 1972).