FAYETTEVILLE,
Ark. — University of Arkansas
researchers have found that across the United States, cities that have an
African American mayor or city manager are much more likely to have more
African American administrators in certain departments, such as housing, fire,
welfare, and streets and highways. They also found that the percentage of
African Americans on city councils is generally unrelated to the percentage of
African American administrators holding city jobs.
Using data from
the U.S. Equal Opportunity Commission, four researchers in the J. William
Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences -- Brinck Kerr, Will Miller, Margaret
Reid and William Schreckhise from the department of political science --
studied the distribution of African Americans in administrative jobs in
municipal government agencies from 1987 through 2001.
The resulting
paper they published, “If Politics Matters, When Does
It Matter? Re-examining the Determinants of African American Municipal
Employment Patterns," recently won the 2006 Jewel Prestage Award for the
best paper on race, ethnicity, gender and political behavior from the Southwest
Political Science Association.
The award, which includes a cash prize, was presented
during the association’s annual meeting in San Antonio, Texas, April 12-15.
The researchers
chose to study municipal government agencies because they are more directly
involved in the daily activities of traditionally disadvantaged groups, unlike
state and federal agencies. Jobs in municipal government not only offer
attractive salaries and benefits but also provide opportunities for
traditionally disadvantaged groups to influence city policies.
Kerr offered theories on why
some African American mayors have little or no effect on the percentage of
African American administrators in departments such as community development,
sanitation and sewage, and utilities.
“These departments are less
relevant to the interests of African American citizens than many other
departments. Thus, these departments may not be a high priority for city
elected officials. Also, there is evidence to suggest that the upper echelons
of agencies such as utilities and community development are dominated by
engineers, bankers, and commercial real estate brokers - African Americans tend
to be underrepresented in these employment fields. Therefore, it may be difficult for elected
officials to recruit African Americans into these public sector jobs. The
private sector compensation for these positions is generally much higher,” Kerr
said.
Margaret Reid said that in
2003, the book the researchers wrote on glass ceilings and glass walls
represented a culmination of several years of work to determine what factors
might explain why women and minorities employed in state and local agencies
were confined to certain job categories or found it difficult to advance to the
highest levels of their organizations.
“While it is important to
look at how organizational missions might affect representation of those groups
in administrative settings, it is equally important in public sector
environments to consider if and how political forces might affect hiring
decisions,” said Reid. “In this paper, we focused especially on the question of
whether having an African American mayor, council members or city manager
mattered in increasing the share of African American administrators in
municipal governments.”
The researchers concluded
that African American executives, whether mayors or city managers, are
generally successful in building African American administrative cadres in departments
that provide general budgetary, personnel and policy support functions such as
financial administration, in some departments that have street level contact
with African American constituencies, such as fire departments, and in
departments that have traditionally served large African American
constituencies such as housing, public welfare, and parks/recreation.
They also found that in
cities with growing Hispanic populations, higher levels of African Americans
administrators were found in several agencies, including community development,
fire, health, police, sanitation and sewage, and utilities. The parks
departments were the only area in which higher numbers of Hispanics were
employed and fewer African Americans held administrative jobs.