Engendered Economics

 

 

9

Race, Class, and Occupational Mobility

 

Black and White Women in Service Work in the United States

 

Marilyn Power and Sam Rosenberg

 

 

The economic experience of women of different race-ethnicities is affected by the complex interaction of race, class, and gender. An analysis of these experiences must acknowledge the “interlocking, interactive nature of these systems” (Glenn 1992, 1), and a growing body of literature has begun the difficult process of understanding this dynamic in the United States as it is played out in many venues.¹ These studies demonstrate that class and racial-ethnic differences are reflected in different life experiences, different world views, and, important for the current study, different labor force experiences. ...