Gregory B Lewis
Biographic Data
| ID | 824534 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Gregory B Lewis |
| GIVEN NAMES | Gregory B |
| FAMILY NAME | Lewis |
| SIGNATURE | LEWIS G B |
| AFFILIATIONS | Georgia State University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2691-6888 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 63 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 763 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 63 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1984 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 13 |
Cultural Conservatism and Opposition to Marriage Equality: The Case of Taiwan
Religious and political conservatism are the strongest predictors of opposition to same‐sex marriage (SSM) in the West. As marriage equality increasingly becomes a political issue in parts of the world where evangelical Christianity is less common and political parties have not taken clear positions, it is less clear whether the same factors influence public opinion elsewhere. We focus on Taiwan, which reinforced its international reputation as a…
The impact of telework on the satisfaction of U.S. federal workers
Evidence has been somewhat mixed on how telework affects job satisfaction, career advancement, and relationships with supervisors. Larger samples and better measures of telework and control variables, however, suggest that frequent telework increased satisfaction with jobs, advancement opportunities, fair treatment, supervisors, and co-workers in both the 2012–2015 and the 2020 Federal Employee Viewpoint Surveys. A quasi-experimental analysis sho…
U.S. Federal Employees With Disabilities: How Perceptions of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility Affect Differences in Job Satisfaction, Organizational Commitment, and Job Involvement
Using the 2022 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey, this study examines whether perceptions of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) help explain why federal employees with disabilities have lower levels of three predictors of work motivation: job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and job involvement. All aspects of DEIA have impacts, but accessibility matters most. People with disabilities have greater accessibility needs a…
A Model Minority? Asian-White Differences in Federal Careers
The stereotype of Asians as a model minority suggests that they either do not experience discrimination or overcome it through higher education, hard work, and respect for authority. We test that stereotype for Asian Americans in the federal service using both Census data and surveys of federal employees. We examine (1) whether Asians attain the same pay levels and managerial authority as whites; (2) whether differences in education, experience, …
Indian Preference and the status of American Indians and Alaska Natives in the federal service: Employment, earnings, authority, and perceptions of fairness
Public administration scholars have largely ignored American Indians and Alaska Natives in their studies of racial disparities in the federal service, despite strong reasons to believe they face discrimination. Using three large federal data sets (the American Community Survey, federal personnel records, and the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey), we compare the status of American Indians and Alaska Natives in the federal service to both Whites a…
Sexual Orientation and Organizational Justice in the Federal Service: Exploring Differences through an Intersectional Lens
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) employees perceive less justice in the federal service than do their heterosexual colleagues. The “double jeopardy” hypothesis suggests that this will be especially true for LGBTs with a second stigmatized identity, but intersectionality theory is less clear about whether being LGBT will have a larger impact on other marginalized groups than on gay white men. Using a series of regression analyses app…
Cross-national variation in determinants of climate change concern
Our understanding of the determinants of public concern about climate change relies heavily on survey research in the United States. But can those findings be generalized to the rest of the world? Analysis of the Pew Research Center’s 2015 Global Attitudes Survey shows fairly similar patterns in the English-speaking Western democracies and, to a lesser extent, western Europe, but party identification and political ideology matter much less in mos…
Diversity, Pay Equity, and Pay in Social Work and Other Professions
Does the social work labor force reflect the field’s commitment to social and economic justice? Using individual-level census data for 1980–2014 on self-identified social workers and on other college graduates in college-majority occupations, this article finds three key patterns. First, representation of women, blacks, and Latinx in social work is high and growing, greatly exceeding that in most of these other occupations. Second, white men cont…
Do Political Science Majors Succeed in the Labor Market
Despite some stakeholders’ concerns about the practical value of an undergraduate degree in political science, our graduates actually do quite well in the labor market. Based on analysis of a sample of 3.4 million college graduates (including 86,000 in political science) from the 2009–2014 American Community Surveys, our majors earn two-thirds more than demographically similar high school graduates if they stop with bachelor’s degrees, but they a…
Progress toward Pay Equity in State Governments
Are state governments fulfilling their responsibilities to be model employers of women and minorities? Using U.S. Census Bureau data on individual employees from 1980 to 2015, this article looks at how much progress state governments have made toward eliminating racial and gender pay differences. It examines whether differences in education, age/experience, citizenship, English ability, hours worked, and occupation explain the pay differences. Pa…
What Causes People to Change Their Opinion about Climate Change
After a decade of steady growth in the acceptance of the existence of climate change and its anthropogenic causes, opinions have polarized, with almost one third of Americans, mostly Republicans, denying that the climate is changing or that human activity is responsible. What causes Americans to change their minds on this issue? Using a large panel data set, we examined the impacts of direct experience with weather anomalies, ideology, relative p…
Does Pension Plan Structure Affect Turnover Patterns
Public pension plans face pressures to cut costs. Although government costs and retiree benefits drive changes in retirement plans, policy makers should also consider impacts on turnover and retirement behavior. In the mid-1980s, Congress moved new federal employees from a traditional defined benefit (DB) pension plan to a new hybrid plan, comprised of a smaller DB plan, Social Security, and a new defined contribution (DC) plan. Early analyses of…
LGBT–Heterosexual Differences in Perceptions of Fair Treatment in the Federal Service
Although we still lack objective data on treatment of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgenders (LGBTs) in the federal service, a huge recent survey of federal employees allows us to compare LGBT and heterosexual employees’ perceptions of the treatment they receive. LGBTs have several reasons for more negative perceptions of their treatment: 70 years of federal policies that explicitly discriminated against LGBTs in large and small ways; sizabl…
The Representation of Immigrants in Federal, State, and Local Government Work Forces
Sexual orientation, work values, pay, and preference for public and nonprofit employment: Evidence from C anadian postsecondary students
Evidence shows that gay men hold fewer government jobs in the US than their share of the population would predict. Two large surveys of Canadian university and college students, however, indicate no lack of interest in public sector jobs among gay, lesbian, transgender and queer people ( GLBTQs ). This article explores data on the differing perceptions, motivations, and expectations of GLBTQ students of public and nonprofit employment. We find th…
The Impact of Veterans' Preference on the Composition and Quality of the Federal Civil Service
Government preference for military veterans in hiring, a means to honor them for their service and sacrifices, potentially conflicts with other values of the public service, including its diversity and quality. Census data for 1990, 2000, and 2006–2009 show that veterans are at least three times as likely to hold federal jobs as, but only 10% more likely to hold state and local government jobs than, comparable individuals without military service…
Turnover Intention and Turnover Behavior: Implications for Retaining Federal Employees
As the retirement wave of Baby Boomers approaches, retaining newly hired, mid-career, and retirement-eligible employees will be nearly as crucial as hiring top-quality new people. Using two large data sets on federal employees, we focus on whether human resource management (HRM) practices can affect turnover intention and whether they matter equally at all stages of the federal career. First, however, we test how well turnover intention predicts …
Stemming inequality? Employment and pay of female and minority scientists and engineers
When white men overwhelmingly dominated the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) work force, the high pay in STEM occupations was a major source of gender and race inequality in the U.S. economy. As women, Blacks, and Latinos increasingly study STEM fields, new possibilities for achieving pay equality are opening. We test whether the reality matches the promise using two large data sets. Analysis of a five percent Public Use M…
The Friends and Family Plan: Contact with Gays and Support for Gay Rights
According to both the contact hypothesis and gay rights advocates, coming out to straight friends and family members should increase acceptance of homosexuality and support for gay rights. If lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals (LGBs) come out primarily to people they expect to be accepting, however, the repeated finding that people who know LGBs are more likely to support gay rights could be overstating the impact of coming out. Using individual‐le…
Representation of Lesbians and Gay Men in Federal, State, and Local Bureaucracies
Using a 5% sample of the 2000 Census, we present the first estimates of the percentages of federal, state, and local government employees who are lesbian, gay, or bisexual (LGB). For each state, we estimate that percentage not only for its total state and local government workforce but also for three occupations where active representation of LGB interests may be the most important: managers, teachers, and police. We then try to explain variation…
The Aging of the State Government Workforce: Trends and Implications
The aging of the baby boom generation, combined with the success of the New Public Management in downsizing the federal government, has led to a rapidly aging federal service, a reduced flow of new blood, and a looming “tsunami” of retirements that are forcing the federal service to reconsider many of its human resource practices. Are state government workforces undergoing the same transformation? Using the 1980, 1990, and 2000 Census 5% Public U…
Modeling Nonprofit Employment: Why Do So Many Lesbians and Gay Men Work for Nonprofit Organizations
Why are people with same-sex partners more likely than married people to work for nonprofit organizations (NPOs)? Analysis of 2000 Census data suggests that smaller gay–straight pay disparities for men in the nonprofit sector, occupational choices, and ability to afford nonprofit employment explain some overrepresentation of partnered gay men but not of partnered lesbians. Even after controlling for all these factors, people with same-sex partner…
Does Believing Homosexuality Is Innate Increase Support for Gay Rights
Why are Americans who believe homosexuality is innate more likely to support the rights of lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals (LGBs)? Attribution theory suggests that people are more likely to support LGB rights if they do not blame LGBs for their sexual orientation. Alternatively, moral condemnation of homosexuality may lead both to belief that homosexuality is a choice and opposition to LGB rights, while acceptance of LGB rights may lead to a bel…
Changing Public Opinion on Same‐Sex Marriage: The Case of California
Though public opposition to same‐sex marriage seems reasonably stable nationally, support in California has grown substantially in the past two decades. Using data from six Field Polls of Californians since 1985, we explore the roots of that growth in individual attitude change and population changes. Cohort replacement can explain half the growth. Although all groups of Californians say that they have become more accepting of homosexual relation…
A Major Difference: Fields of Study and Male—Female Pay Differences in Federal Employment
Men's greater tendency to study such high-paying fields as engineering, computer science, and business may account for half of the pay gap between male and female college graduates in the general economy, and women's mobility into traditionally male fields may explain the closing of the gender pay gap in recent decades. Do similar patterns hold for the federal civil service? Using 1% samples of college graduates in 1983, 1993, and 2003, we find t…
Black-White Differences in Attitudes toward Homosexuality and Gay Rights
Black homophobia has been cited as a contributing factor in slowing mobilization against AIDS in the African-American community, as an obstacle to black lesbians and gay men in coming to terms with their sexuality, and as a challenge to the legitimacy of the gay rights movement. Yet evidence that blacks are more homophobic than whites is quite limited. This article uses responses from almost seven thousand blacks and forty-three thousand whites i…
The Friends and Family Plan: Contact with Gays and Support for Gay Rights
According to both the contact hypothesis and gay rights advocates, coming out to straight friends and family members should increase acceptance of homosexuality and support for gay rights. If lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals (LGBs) come out primarily to people they expect to be accepting, however, the repeated finding that people who know LGBs are more likely to support gay rights could be overstating the impact of coming out. Using individual‐le…
Public Service Motivation and Job Performance: Evidence from the Federal Sector
Perry and Wise (1990) argued that people with high public service motivation (PSM) are more likely than others to choose government jobs, to perform better on the job, and to respond more to nonutilitarian incentives once in government. Using multiple regression and logit analyses on responses by 35,000 federal, white-collar employees to the 1991 Survey of Federal Employees and the 1996 Merit Principles Survey, this article tests the link between…
Government Employees: Working Hard or Hardly Working
Are government employees lazier than private-sector employees? Drawing from theories of work motivation and public service motivation, this article examines three public-private differences that might produce different levels of work effort in the two sectors. First, government and business may offer different extrinsic and intrinsic rewards. Second, public and private workers may seek different rewards. Third, public and private workers may diff…
Changing Public Opinion on Same‐Sex Marriage: The Case of California
Though public opposition to same‐sex marriage seems reasonably stable nationally, support in California has grown substantially in the past two decades. Using data from six Field Polls of Californians since 1985, we explore the roots of that growth in individual attitude change and population changes. Cohort replacement can explain half the growth. Although all groups of Californians say that they have become more accepting of homosexual relation…
Does Believing Homosexuality Is Innate Increase Support for Gay Rights
Why are Americans who believe homosexuality is innate more likely to support the rights of lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals (LGBs)? Attribution theory suggests that people are more likely to support LGB rights if they do not blame LGBs for their sexual orientation. Alternatively, moral condemnation of homosexuality may lead both to belief that homosexuality is a choice and opposition to LGB rights, while acceptance of LGB rights may lead to a bel…
Representation of Lesbians and Gay Men in Federal, State, and Local Bureaucracies
Using a 5% sample of the 2000 Census, we present the first estimates of the percentages of federal, state, and local government employees who are lesbian, gay, or bisexual (LGB). For each state, we estimate that percentage not only for its total state and local government workforce but also for three occupations where active representation of LGB interests may be the most important: managers, teachers, and police. We then try to explain variation…
Cross-national variation in determinants of climate change concern
Our understanding of the determinants of public concern about climate change relies heavily on survey research in the United States. But can those findings be generalized to the rest of the world? Analysis of the Pew Research Center’s 2015 Global Attitudes Survey shows fairly similar patterns in the English-speaking Western democracies and, to a lesser extent, western Europe, but party identification and political ideology matter much less in mos…
Same-Sex Marriage and the 2004 Presidential Election
Immediately after the 2004 election, with overwhelming majorities in 13 states voting to amend their constitutions to ban same-sex marriage and exit polls showing large numbers saying “moral values” were the most important determinant of their vote, many analysts emphasized religious and cultural divides in the electorate and the importance of the religious right and same-sex marriage in motivating President George W. Bush's base to get out and v…
Turnover Rates in Federal White-Collar Employment: Are Women more Likely to Quit than Men
Between 1976 and 1986, women's gross turnover rates were about one-third higher than men's in the federal civil service. Such differences frequently are cited as a justification for preferring men for positions with high training costs or as one explanation why men earn so much more than women. Using a 1% sample of federal personnel records for 1976-86, this paper shows how misleading gross turnover rates can be. Male-female differences seem to b…
Giving, Volunteering, and Mistrusting Government
Race, Sex, and Occupational Segregation in State and Local Governments
Using EEO-4 data, provided by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, for state and local governments with more than 250 employees, this paper details the extent of sexual and racial segregation of occupations in 1987 and trends since 1981. It tests a model of determination of occupational segregation and explores the effect of levels of and declines in segregation on the pay of women and minorities
LGBT–Heterosexual Differences in Perceptions of Fair Treatment in the Federal Service
Although we still lack objective data on treatment of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgenders (LGBTs) in the federal service, a huge recent survey of federal employees allows us to compare LGBT and heterosexual employees’ perceptions of the treatment they receive. LGBTs have several reasons for more negative perceptions of their treatment: 70 years of federal policies that explicitly discriminated against LGBTs in large and small ways; sizabl…
Pay, Productivity, and the Public Sector: The Case of Electrical Engineers
Much disagreement over the status of public pay arises from the comparisons made. governments compare equivalent jobs while economists compare equivalent workers. We pursue a compromise: we apply the economists' model of salary determination of statistically equivalent workers to a sample restricted to people in equivalent jobs-electrical engineers in the public and private sectors. We also explicitly consider the possibility that privatesector w…
The Impact of Veterans' Preference on the Composition and Quality of the Federal Civil Service
Government preference for military veterans in hiring, a means to honor them for their service and sacrifices, potentially conflicts with other values of the public service, including its diversity and quality. Census data for 1990, 2000, and 2006–2009 show that veterans are at least three times as likely to hold federal jobs as, but only 10% more likely to hold state and local government jobs than, comparable individuals without military service…
Barriers to Security Clearances for Gay Men and Lesbians: Fear of Blackmail or Fear of Homosexuals
Federal policies denied security clearances to lesbians and gay men until the 1980s and subjected gay applicants to intrusive questioning about their sex lives until the 1990s. Administrators argued that homosexuals made poor risks because of their susceptibility to blackmail, but the government has never made a strong public case for that claim. The courts rejected a charge of immorality as a legitimate basis for firing gay federal employees by …
Sexual orientation, work values, pay, and preference for public and nonprofit employment: Evidence from C anadian postsecondary students
Evidence shows that gay men hold fewer government jobs in the US than their share of the population would predict. Two large surveys of Canadian university and college students, however, indicate no lack of interest in public sector jobs among gay, lesbian, transgender and queer people ( GLBTQs ). This article explores data on the differing perceptions, motivations, and expectations of GLBTQ students of public and nonprofit employment. We find th…
Gender Integration of Occupations in the Federal Civil Service: Extent and Effects on Male-Female Earnings
Using the U.S. Office of Personnel Management's Central Personnel Data File, the author shows that from 1976 through 1992 gender integration of occupations proceeded more rapidly and steadily in the federal civil service than in the general economy. During that period, increasing numbers of women moved into traditionally male occupations, especially in professional and administrative work. Little of that progress, the author finds, was attributab…
What Causes People to Change Their Opinion about Climate Change
After a decade of steady growth in the acceptance of the existence of climate change and its anthropogenic causes, opinions have polarized, with almost one third of Americans, mostly Republicans, denying that the climate is changing or that human activity is responsible. What causes Americans to change their minds on this issue? Using a large panel data set, we examined the impacts of direct experience with weather anomalies, ideology, relative p…
Stemming inequality? Employment and pay of female and minority scientists and engineers
When white men overwhelmingly dominated the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) work force, the high pay in STEM occupations was a major source of gender and race inequality in the U.S. economy. As women, Blacks, and Latinos increasingly study STEM fields, new possibilities for achieving pay equality are opening. We test whether the reality matches the promise using two large data sets. Analysis of a five percent Public Use M…
Sexual Orientation and Organizational Justice in the Federal Service: Exploring Differences through an Intersectional Lens
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) employees perceive less justice in the federal service than do their heterosexual colleagues. The “double jeopardy” hypothesis suggests that this will be especially true for LGBTs with a second stigmatized identity, but intersectionality theory is less clear about whether being LGBT will have a larger impact on other marginalized groups than on gay white men. Using a series of regression analyses app…
Diversity, Pay Equity, and Pay in Social Work and Other Professions
Does the social work labor force reflect the field’s commitment to social and economic justice? Using individual-level census data for 1980–2014 on self-identified social workers and on other college graduates in college-majority occupations, this article finds three key patterns. First, representation of women, blacks, and Latinx in social work is high and growing, greatly exceeding that in most of these other occupations. Second, white men cont…
Does Pension Plan Structure Affect Turnover Patterns
Public pension plans face pressures to cut costs. Although government costs and retiree benefits drive changes in retirement plans, policy makers should also consider impacts on turnover and retirement behavior. In the mid-1980s, Congress moved new federal employees from a traditional defined benefit (DB) pension plan to a new hybrid plan, comprised of a smaller DB plan, Social Security, and a new defined contribution (DC) plan. Early analyses of…
Modeling Nonprofit Employment: Why Do So Many Lesbians and Gay Men Work for Nonprofit Organizations
Why are people with same-sex partners more likely than married people to work for nonprofit organizations (NPOs)? Analysis of 2000 Census data suggests that smaller gay–straight pay disparities for men in the nonprofit sector, occupational choices, and ability to afford nonprofit employment explain some overrepresentation of partnered gay men but not of partnered lesbians. Even after controlling for all these factors, people with same-sex partner…
Public Spending on the Arts as Morality Policy: The Structure of Public Attitudes
Successfully reframing a political issue as morality policy should strengthen the hand of those charging immorality. However, reframers face a daunting task in shifting public opinion. In 1989, Christian conservatives attempted to reframe the debate over federal funding for the arts from waste to immorality, by attacking grants for “anti‐Christian” and “homoerotic” art. Using General Social Survey data from before, during, and after the attempted…
Who Pays for Veterans' Preference
The role of veterans `preference in the federal civil service has been both attacked and applauded. Yet little policy research has been conducted investigating the impact of preferential hiring on veterans, the merit system, or the employment of women and miniorities. This article uses data on employees within the General Schedule system to isolate the effects of veterans `preference from those of race, sex, education, federal experience, and age…
Municipal Expenditures Through Thick and Thin
This article examines changes in the revenue and expenditure patterns of twelve major cities (six fiscally healthy; six fiscally distressed) from fiscal years 1964 to 1979. The purpose of the examinatin is to determine whether resource scarcity results in significantly different expenditure patterns, especially for essential services (police, fire sanitation, and sewerage), social services (welfare, health, hospitals, and public housing), capital…
Race, Sex, and Supervisory Authority in Federal White-Collar Employment
Public Support for Comparable Worth in Georgia
Women's groups and some labor unions are increasingly pressing public personnel systems to pay women as much as men not only for equal but for work of comparable worth.' The State of Washington performed first important comparable worth study in 1974. The study estimated that male-dominated occupations paid 20 percent more than female-dominated occupations requiring similar knowledge and skills, mental demands, accountability, and working conditi…
Impact of the Baby Boom on Career Success in Federal Civil Service
But despite their success in attracting attention to their interests and despite their current image as spoiled Yuppies, the baby boomers have not been especially successful economically. They have had more trouble than their parents did in buying homes, are spending less than their parents did on items such as furniture and clothing, and keep their personal consumption up largely by postponing having children.3 Much of their problem is the overa…
Progress toward Racial and Sexual Equality in the Federal Civil Service
Turnover Rates in Federal White-Collar Employment: Are Women more Likely to Quit than Men
Between 1976 and 1986, women's gross turnover rates were about one-third higher than men's in the federal civil service. Such differences frequently are cited as a justification for preferring men for positions with high training costs or as one explanation why men earn so much more than women. Using a 1% sample of federal personnel records for 1976-86, this paper shows how misleading gross turnover rates can be. Male-female differences seem to b…
In Search of the Machiavellian Milquetoasts: Comparing Attitudes of Bureaucrats and Ordinary People
Charles Goodsell (1983, p. 12) argues that the public image of government employees is highly contradictory but overwhelmingly negative. Bureaucrats are portrayed as fear-ridden yet arrogant, incompetent yet ominous, milquetoasts yet Machiavellians. His own reading of the research literature leads him to conclude that bureaucrats are just ordinary people, with demographic characteristics, political opinions, and personal attitudes quite similar t…
Turnover and the Quiet Crisis in the Federal Civil Service
The Impact of Disabilities on Federal Career Success
Race, Sex, and Occupational Segregation in State and Local Governments
Using EEO-4 data, provided by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, for state and local governments with more than 250 employees, this paper details the extent of sexual and racial segregation of occupations in 1987 and trends since 1981. It tests a model of determination of occupational segregation and explores the effect of levels of and declines in segregation on the pay of women and minorities
Asian Americans in the Public Service: Success, Diversity, and Discrimination
Women, Occupations, and Federal Agencies: Occupational Mix and Interagency Differences in Sexual Inequality in Federal White-Collar Employment
The status of women varies strikingly across major federal agencies. In 1987, for instance, women comprised 66 percent of all white-collar employees in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) but only 23 percent in the Department of Transportation (DOT). They made up 28 percent of employees at grade GS 13 or above in the Department of Education, but only 6 percent at National Acronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The difference i…
Gays and the Workplace
Will Locality Pay Solve Recruitment and Retention Problems in the Federal Civil Service
Do differences in the competitiveness of local labor markets affect the government's ability to recruit and retain federal workers? The Federal Employee Pay Comparability Act of 1990 (FEPCA) assumes that they do. FEPCA replaces a uniform national salary schedule for white-collar workers with a system of locality pay, which will remunerate the same work more highly in San Francisco than in Santa Fe. In this article, we use a 1 percent sample of fe…
Above and beyond
Gender Integration of Occupations in the Federal Civil Service: Extent and Effects on Male-Female Earnings
Using the U.S. Office of Personnel Management's Central Personnel Data File, the author shows that from 1976 through 1992 gender integration of occupations proceeded more rapidly and steadily in the federal civil service than in the general economy. During that period, increasing numbers of women moved into traditionally male occupations, especially in professional and administrative work. Little of that progress, the author finds, was attributab…
Coming out in the Workplace
Grade Creep in the Federal Service: Another Look
Why did the mean grade of federal white-collar workers rise 1.2 grades between 1977 and 1993? The author explores 4 possible explanations: (a) increasing complexity of federal work and increasing qualifications of federal workers; (b) declining discrimination against women and minorities; (c) responses to the underpayment of federal workers; and (4) grade creep, an inflation of grades without an accompanying rise in the difficulty and responsibil…
Asian Americans in the Federal Service: Education, Occupational Choice, and Perceptions of Discrimination: A Reply
Christopher Daniel claims that statistical disparities...shed little light on this issue [job discrimination] because plausible alternatives to the discrimination hypothesis can be formulated. He asserts that differences in abilities, cultural backgrounds, and occupational choices between Asian immigrants and white civil servants probably explain many of the disparities we described in our previous article (Kim and Lewis, 1994). In this reply, we…
Race, Sex, and Performance Ratings in the Federal Service
The Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 required all federal agencies to develop performance evaluation systems to for periodic appraisals of job performance of and to use the results...as a basis for training, rewarding, reassigning, promoting, demoting, retaining, and separating employees (Dresang, 1991, 132). Thus, federal performance appraisals are intended both to provide unbiased measures of job performance and to strongly influence federal ca…
Lifting the Ban on Gays in the Civil Service: Federal Policy toward Gay and Lesbian Employees since the Cold War
Although military's ban on lesbians and gays has generated considerable political controversy, many people remain unaware that federal government also prohibited employment of gays in civil service until 1975. This article provides a brief history of political, bureaucratic, and judicial forces involved in creation, implementation, and elimination of that prohibition. Though policy apparently stretches back to early days of Republic, its importan…
Guns, Butter, and Federal Careers: Growth, Decline, and Personnel in Defense and Domestic Agencies
Comparably educated and experienced federal employees held lower grades in the Department of Defense (DOD) than in the rest of the civil service in every year between 1976 and 1995, even at the height of President Reagan's defense build-up. DOD promotion rates jumped, the quality of DOD new hires rose, and the DOD pay disadvantage shrank during the build-up, then reversed course once DOD fell into decline. Men (especially white men) in DOD were t…
Part-Time Employment in the Federal Service: Do the Benefits Outweigh the Costs
Despite congressional directives calling on federal agencies to promote part-time employment opportunities, the civil service uses part-time workers far less than does the private sector. The reason may lie both in decreased career advancement for part-timers and in higher administrative costs for federal agencies. Using two large samples of federal employees, the author explores differences between part-time and full-time employees in terms of t…
Pay, Productivity, and the Public Sector: The Case of Electrical Engineers
Much disagreement over the status of public pay arises from the comparisons made. governments compare equivalent jobs while economists compare equivalent workers. We pursue a compromise: we apply the economists' model of salary determination of statistically equivalent workers to a sample restricted to people in equivalent jobs-electrical engineers in the public and private sectors. We also explicitly consider the possibility that privatesector w…
Political science (55 works) · Economics (37 works) · Business (36 works) · Sociology (33 works) · Law (32 works) · Law (31 works) · Demographic economics (27 works) · Psychology (27 works) · Politics (19 works) · Public Administration (19 works)