UC Santa Cruz

Abstract

My dissertation addresses a theoretical assertion in the literature that increasing the numbers of groups historically excluded from occupations will decrease inequality among workers at work (Bergmann 1986; Brewer and Brown 1998; Smith and Elliott 2001, 2002; Kanter 1977; Williams 1992; Wingfield 2009). It is assumed that if groups of workers are nearly evenly represented in occupations (or in integrated occupations), the more equally the labor market rewards will be distributed across the work organization. Yet, scholars of work have not studied integrated occupations enough to test these assumptions (Gatta and Roos 2005; Kennelly 2002). In this dissertation, I investigate upwards mobility from entry-level, integrated occupations to advanced occupations, to evaluate if parity of numbers between groups of entry-level workers does result in equal opportunity of advancement to better jobs. My research tests the assumption that if groups can equally get hired into entry-level jobs within a job ladder, that they will have the same chances to move into better jobs.

The primary research questions of my dissertation include: Does increasing the representation of women and minority groups reduce gender and racial inequality in work organizations? Why do groups with similar educational backgrounds get their foot in the door but some are more likely to advance in one sector than the other? To best examine why some groups have greater access to better quality jobs than others, I chose to design a comparative case study of service occupations. I selected the occupations by examining national service employment data to identify internal job ladders that met the following criteria. First, the job ladder had to provide advancement to better jobs for workers. Second, the job ladder had to be integrated by gender and race-ethnicity in entry-level positions with nearly even numbers of workers eligible for advancement. My analysis of data from these selected cases described not just the larger patterns found within workers advancement to better jobs, but also identified the mechanisms that explained why these patterns exist within specific types of internal job ladders.

The two types of internal occupational ladders that met these criteria in the service sector were backline kitchen work and frontline casino work, with almost the same basic education and experience requirements for workers. My analysis revealed that these internal ladders showed similar patterns of occupational integration at the entry-level but different patterns of occupational segregation in advanced positions, indicating that some have greater chances to advance from the entry-level occupation to a better job. It's often assumed that integration of occupations is the solution to reduce inequality in the labor market. Even though occupational integration has the potential to reduce inequality, it isn't a simple solution to inequality.

To examine why, I conducted qualitative interviews with 46 people employed as workers, supervisors, managers, owners, and executives in the restaurant and casino industries and observed participants in one restaurant kitchen and one casino gaming pit. From this research, I found that men are more likely to advance in restaurant kitchens, while women are more likely to advance in table dealing, and white workers are more likely to advance in casino management. Each workplace requires workers to be highly interactive with others but their interactive engagement at work is quite different. In restaurant kitchens, interaction largely takes place among kitchen workers engaging in intensive team work and rarely with customers ― or backline interactive work. On casino floors, interaction largely takes place between customers and dealers and rarely among workers ― or frontline interactive work. Access to better jobs varies across gender and race by the type of interaction in the workplace, either backline or frontline interactive work.

My dissertation looks into the workplace to examine workers' mobility once they are hired into jobs. I argue mobility is a central characteristic of job quality and connect it to the persistent segmentation of internal job ladders. In the entry-level service occupations that I selected, there is the potential to move up into good jobs. By comparing the service interactions of backline workers with frontline workers, my dissertation adds to the literature on service work, stratification and mobility. I argue that workplace banter is a key mechanism that shapes the mobility of workers differently, depending on the type of interaction and its character of banter. Organizational norms of banter and the degree to which they were followed by workers influenced their opportunities to advance into better jobs. Racial and gendered inequalities were reproduced in the workplace, shaping upwards mobility differently for groups of workers, depending on the type of service work and the norms of banter. My dissertation adds to the stratification literature by drawing on the theory of boundary work to contribute a new analysis of interactional norms in the workplace that explains why groups have different access to mobility in internal job ladders.