Abstract
While there has been much research on the influence of educational attainment on occupational status and earnings, relatively little is known about its impact on other qualities of work, such as job complexity. This article explores how educational credentials affect access to jobs that provide challenging work. To do so it uses longitudinal data on black, Hispanic, and white men and women who attended the City University of New York after it initiated its landmark open-admissions policy in 1970. That program was designed to boost educational attainments among disadvantaged minority students and to enhance opportunities for desirable jobs. Analyses reveal that overall the jobs held by these minorities involved less complex work than those held by whites. These inequalities are explained partly by disparities in educational attainment, but differences in employment sector also are important: the minorities were more often in the public sector, where work was generally less challenging. Gender differences in work complexity are related to the varying distribution of sex-typed jobs in the public and private sectors. Policies such as open admissions add to opportunity in the labor market, but effects are limited by wider institutional conditions.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Adler, Paul 1986 “Technology and us.” Socialist Review 16:67–96.
Alba, Richard D., andDavid E. Lavin 1981 “Community colleges and tracking in higher education.” Sociology of Education 54:223–247.
Angle, John, andDavid A. Wissmann 1981 “Gender, college major, and earnings.” Sociology of Education 54:25–33.
Bell, Daniel 1973 The Coming of Post-Industrial Society: A Venture in Social Forecasting. New York: Basic Books.
Berk, Richard 1983 “An introduction to sample selection bias in sociological data.” American Sociological Review 48:386–398.
Blalock, Hubert M. 1979 Social Statistics: Rev. 2nd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Blau, Peter M., andOtis D. Duncan 1967 The American Occupational Structure. New York: Wiley.
Bowen, Howard R. 1977 Investment in Learning: The Individual and Social Value of Higher Education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Cain, Pamela S., andDonaid J. Treiman 1981 “The ‘Dictionary of Occupational Titles’ as a source of occupational data.” American Sociological Review 46:253–278.
Carnoy, Martin, andHenry M. Levin 1985 Schooling and Work in the Democratic State. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Cohen, Jacob, andPatricia Cohen 1983 Applied Multiple Regression/Correlation Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Collins, Sharon 1983 “The making of the black middle class.” Social Problems 30:369–381.
Daymont, Thomas N., andPaul L. Andrisani 1984 “Job preferences, college major, and the gender gap in earnings.” Journal of Human Resources 19:408–428.
DiPrete, Thomas A. 1987 “The professionalization of administration and equal employment opportunity in the U.S. federal government.” American Journal of Sociology 93:119–140.
DiPrete, Thomas A., andWhitman T. Soule 1986 “The organization of career lines: Equal employment opportunity and status advancement in a federal bureaucracy.” American Sociological Review 51:295–309.
Dougherty, Kevin 1987 “The effects of community colleges: Aid or hindrance to socioeconomic attainment?” Sociology of Education 60:86–103.
England, Paula, andLori McCreary 1987 “Gender inequality in paid employment.” In Beth B. Hess and Myra Marx Ferree (eds.), Analyzing Gender: A Handbook of Social Science Research: 286–320. Newbury Park: Sage.
Farley, Reynolds 1984 Blacks and Whites: Narrowing the Gap? Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Featherman, David L., andRobert M. Hauser 1978 Opportunity and Change. New York: Academic Press.
Feldman, Kenneth A., andTheodore M. Newcomb 1973 The Impact of College on Students. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Hall, Richard H. 1983 “Theoretical trends in the sociology of occupations.” Sociological Quarterly 24:5–23.
Heise, David R. 1972 “Employing nominal variables, induced variables, and block variables in path analyses.” Sociological Methods and Research 1:147–173.
Hirschhorn, Larry 1984 Beyond Mechanization: Work and Technology in a Postindustrial Age. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
1984a “Occupational mobility of black men: 1962 to 1973.” American Sociological Review 49:308–322.
1984b “Status, autonomy, and training in occupational mobility.” American Journal of Sociology 89:1379–1409.
1988 “More universalism, less structural mobility: The American occupational structure in the 1980s.” American Journal of Sociology 93:1358–1400.
Hunter, Alfred A. 1988 “Formal education and initial employment: Unravelling the relationship between schooling and skills over time.” American Sociological Review 53:753–765.
Jencks, Christopher, Susan Bartlett, Mary Corcoran, James Crouse, David Eaglesfield, Gregory Jackson, Kent McClelland, Peter Mueser, Michael Olneck, Joseph Schwartz, Sherry Ward, andJill Williams 1979 Who Gets Ahead? Determinants of Economic Success in America. New York: Basic Books.
Jencks, Christopher, Lauri Perman, andLee Rainwater 1988 “What is a good job? A new measure of labor market success.” American Journal of Sociology 93:1322–1357.
Karabel, Jerome 1972 “Community colleges and social stratification.” Harvard Educational Review 42:521–562.
Kasarda, John D. 1983 “Entry-level jobs, mobility, and urban minority unemployment.” Urban Affairs Quarterly 19:21–40.
Kaufman, Robert L. 1986 “The impact of industrial and occupational structure on black-white employment allocation.” American Sociological Review 51:310–323.
Kaufman, Robert L., andThomas N. Daymont 1981 Racial discrimination and the social organization of industries.” Social Science Research 10:225–255.
Kohn, Melvin L., andCarmi Schooler 1983 Work and Personality: An Inquiry into the Impact of Social Stratification. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing.
Kluegel, James R. 1978 “The causes and cost of racial exclusion from job authority.” American Sociological Review 43:285–301.
1979 “Open admissions and equal access: A study of ethnic groups in the City University of New York.” Harvard Educational Review 49:53–92.
1981 Right Versus Privilege: The Open Admissions Experiment at the City University of New York. New York: Free Press.
Lavin, David E., James Murtha, and David Hyllegard 1989 “Open-access higher education and work: A fourteen year followup of open-admissions students and their labor market experiences.” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco.
Lavin, David E., andDavid B. Crook 1990 “Open admissions and its outcomes: Ethnic differences in long-term educational attainment.” American Journal of Education 98:389–425.
Lichter, Daniel T. 1988 “Racial differences in underemployment in American cities.” American Journal of Sociology 93:771–792.
Marini, Margaret Mooney, andMary Brinton 1984 “Sex typing in occupational socialization.” In Barbara F. Reskin (ed.), Sex Segregation in the Workplace: Trends, Explanations, and Remedies: 192–232. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
Mickelson, Roslyn A. 1989 “Why does Jane read and write so well? The anomaly of women's achievement.” Sociology of Education 62:47–63.
Miller, Ann R., Donald J. Treiman, Pamela S. Cain, andPatricia A. Roos 1980 Work, Jobs, and Occupations: A Critical Review of the ‘Dictionary of Occupational Titles.’ Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
1974 Schooling, Experience, and Earnings. New York: Columbia University Press.
1989 “Human capital and the labor market: A review of current research.” Educational Researcher 18:27–34.
Monk-Turner, Elizabeth 1990 “The occupational achievements of community and four-year college entrants.” American Sociological Review 55:719–725.
Mueller, Charles W., andToby L. Parcel 1986 “Ascription, dimensions of authority, and earnings: The case of supervisors.” In Robert V. Robinson (ed.), Research in Social Stratification and Mobility: 192–222. Greenwich, Connecticut: JAI Press.
1980 “The false promise of community colleges: Class conflict and vocational education.” Harvard Educational Review 50:332–361.
1986 “Vocational education: More false promises.” In L. Steven Zwerling (ed.), The Community College and Its Critics: 41–52. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Rosenfeld, Rachel A. 1980 “Race and sex differences in career dynamics.” American Sociological Review 45:583–609.
Rumberger, Russell W. 1981 Overeducation in the U.S. Labor Market. New York: Praeger.
Sewell, William H., andRobert M. Hauser 1975 Education, Occupation, and Earnings: Achievement in the Early Career. New York: Academic Press.
Sokoloff, Natalie J 1980 Between Money and Love: The Dialectics of Women's Home and Market Work. New York: Praeger.
1979 “Vertical differentiation among occupations.” American Sociological Review 44:746–762.
1984 “Structural contexts and the stratification of work.” In Donald J. Treiman and Robert V. Robinson (eds.), Research in Social Stratification and Mobility: 77–92. Greenwich, Connecticut: JAI Press.
Spenner, Kenneth I. 1983 “Deciphering Prometheus: Temporal change in the skill level of work.” American Sociological Review 48:824–837.
Spilerman, Seymour 1977 “Careers, labor market structures and socioeconomic achievement.” American Journal of Sociology 83:551–593.
Strumpel, Burkhard 1971 “Higher education and economic behavior.” In Stephen B. Withey (ed.), A Degree and What Else?: 55–79. New York: McGraw-Hill.
1983 1980 Census of Population: Detailed Population Characteristics: New York. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.
1984 1980 Census of Population: Detailed Population Characteristics: U.S. Summary. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.
1977 Dictionary of Occupational Titles, 4th ed. Machine-readable data file available from Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
1988 The New York Transformation: Dimensions of the Knowledge Economy. New York: Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Useem, Michael, andJerome Karabel 1986 “Pathways to top corporate management.” American Sociological Review 51:184–200.
Waldinger, Roger 1986–1987 “Changing ladders and musical chairs: Ethnicity and opportunity in post-industrial New York.” Politics and Society 15:369–401.
Wilson, William J. 1980 The Declining Significance of Race: Blacks and Changing American Institutions, 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
1979a “Sexual stratification: Differences in power in the work setting.” Social Forces 58:94–107.
1979b “Sex and authority in the work-place: The causes of sexual inequality.” American Sociological Review 44:235–252.
Zuboff, Shoshana 1988 In the Age of the Smart Machine: The Future of Work and Power. New York: Basic Books.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Hyllegard, D., Lavin, D.E. Higher education and challenging work: Open admissions and ethnic and gender differences in job complexity. Sociol Forum 7, 239–260 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01125042
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01125042