Clarifying the Educational and Early Occupational Attainment Process: the Case of Young Black Adults (Unemployment, Allocation, Socialization).

What are the factors that make the difference in the educational and early occupational attainment of young black adults? Frequently the attainment process of the black youth population has been largely defined by the norms of the white male population (Blau and Duncan, 1967; Sewell and Hauser, 1972). Recognizing this, the present study chose to utilize a more sensitive, cultural context for assessing the young black adults' attainment, the black family and community. The family background, interpersonal, personal, educational and employment factors were all considered in assessing the available resources and the nature of the constraints under which the young black adults lived. The data for this study come from the National Survey of Black Americans (NSBA) dataset, which is a national probability sample of the black population. This sample of 201 young black adults (86 male and 115 female) originally participated in face to face interviews as members of a three generation family sample in 1979 and 1980. Those young adults selected were between the ages of 16-24 when initially interviewed and 19-28 when reinterviewed by telephone in 1983. Educational attainment was best predicted for young adults who reported independence from sibling advice, whose mothers were housewives and who aspired to upper level white collar positions. Educational attainment, however, is not a guarantee of occupational attainment or even of being employed in the labor market. Occupational attainment was best predicted for those who did not know the father's education (mainly due to father's absence, those who had 13 or more years of schooling and those whose mothers had 13 or more years of schooling. Thirty-nine percent of the sample was unemployed in 1983. When utilizing socialization and allocation measures, Kerchoff (1976), we found that only 14% of the variance in employment status was explained. This suggests that status attainment models require major revision when applied to minority and female populations because of the more fundamental issue of their inability to secure employment.PhDSociologyBlack studiesUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/161053/1/8612657.pd