| Historically, opportunity hoarding strategies (i.e., tactics to acquire and monopolize valuable resources) such as racial threat (i.e., overt discrimination resulting from large proportions of black residents), racial residential segregation, and jailing have influenced the labor market access of both blacks and whites. This research evaluates how opportunity hoarding strategies influenced the unemployment rates of African American and white men in 1940, 1960, and 1980. I address these relationships by primarily drawing from Tilly's (1999) Durable Inequality Theory (DIT). I also draw from Western's (2006) adjusted unemployment rate to analyze how acknowledging those who are imprisoned in the unemployment rate impacts the relationships between opportunity hoarding and unemployment. In a diverse sample of 136 U.S. urban counties, net of region, percent change in retail employment, and the Talented Tenth, the findings from my Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression suggest that opportunity hoarding practices were influential on the labor market participation of both black and white males in 1940, 1960, and 1980. Focusing on the results for the standard unemployment rates shows that whether observing white or black males, proportion black never impacted unemployment, segregation was influential in each era, while jailing was only influential in 1980. Focusing on the results for the adjusted unemployment rates reveals that proportion black and segregation were influential in 1940 and 1960, while jailing was actually influential in each era. Utilizing the results for the adjusted unemployment rates shows that the results limited to the standard unemployment rate are slightly flawed and overlook important indicators of unemployment. They also show that the failure of racial threat and the ghetto to effectively marginalize blacks and hoard opportunities for whites led to the use of the criminal justice system as the opportunity hoarding mechanism of choice for American society. |
