IRP Discussion Papers

An important exception to improvements in the relative socioeconomic status of blacks during recent decades is increased levels of joblessness among black youths relative to whites. Despite the many proposed explanations for this trend) few reconcile worsening employment status for black youths with concomitant improvements in other socioeconomic indicators. Three mechanisms that link reduced status differences between blacks and whites in other spheres with increased disparity in employment are: (1) increased substitution of schooling and military service for employment by young blacks; (2) reduced work experience and disrupted employment for young blacks at older ages as a result of later average ages upon leaving school and the armed forces; and (3) "creaming" young blacks with above-average employment prospects from the civilian out-ofschool population as a result of higher school enrollment and military enlistment rates. Empirical assessment of these arguments using individual-level annual March Current Population Survey data for 1964-1981 shows that they account for a substantial part of the growing racial employment difference among men aged 16 to 29. The results suggest that race differences in youth employment in the early 1960s were concealed by race differences in rates and timing of school enrollment and military enlistment. Elimination of the latter differences reveals the true size of the race difference in employment. Although racial convergence on school enrollment and educational attainment has reduced other socioeconomic inequalities between the races) it has widened the employment difference.