RACE/GENDER WORKPLACE COMPOSITION, AND ACCESS TO JOB TRAINING:

assess composition by race/ethnic minority and gender status as well as its consequences for access to job training. After graduating from college, I (here refers to Song Yang) obtained a job in a small tourism firm affiliated with Nankai University, China. Tourism is a lucrative and highly institutionalized industry in China. The central administration requires that to receive national accredited certification, tour guides need to receive training to pass a qualifying examination. Certified tour guides receive much higher income than do uncertified workers. Unfortunately, I missed several rounds of selection to receive such training and never became a certified guide. Later I pursued graduate training in firm economics in Nankai University, which gave me an opportunity to scrutinize methodically resource allocation within firms. My studies of employer and firm behavior continued through my doctorate studies in the sociology of work and organization. I found that although scholars concur that certain groups such as women and minorities are underprivileged in receiving training, they tend to theorize it differently. For example, labor economists assert that rational employers provide more training to white men than to women and minority workers because the latter groups have allegedly low work commitment and high job turn-over rate. However, sociologists state that employer discrimination accounts for the gender and racial gap in training. Discriminatory employers place women and minority workers into less desirable jobs and workplaces that provide less training. This analysis establishes the importance of firm-level analyses: minorities are concentrated in firms that are comprised of devalued positions, and women are concentrated in firms that contain gender-typed jobs. Further, despite these distinct bases of concentration, minorities and women share a lack of job training opportunities. at PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on May 12, 2016has.sagepub.comDownloaded fro