Choosing Public Sector Employment

In the past, researchers in the field of public administration have been hindered in their ability to study trends in the representation of women and minorities in state government due to limitations in data availability. This article develops an alternative approach to examining the representation of women and minorities in state government bureaucracies over the period from 1987 to 2002. Based on estimates constructed using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Current Population Survey, our analysis shows that women are generally overrepresented in state government employment relative to their civilian labor force representation within a state, and African-Americans are overrepresented in many states. Latinos are typically underrepresented. We also examine the potential determinants of representation for women and minorities, and find, among other factors, private sector race and sex-based wage differentials, relative to those in the public sector, are positively associated with the representation of women, African-Americans, and Latinos in state government workforces

Affirmative action · Bureaucracy · Current Population Survey · Demographic economics · Economic growth · Economics · Government (linguistics · Government sector · Labour economics · Political science · Politics · Population · Private sector · Public sector · Representation (politics · Sociology · State (computer science · Wage · Gender Diversity and Inequality · Gender Politics and Representation · Labor Movements and Unions · Demography · Law

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