Structural Racism And Black Women’s Employment In The US Health Care Sector

Janette Dill; Mignon Duffy

doi:10.1377/hlthaff.2021.01400

Structural Racism And Black Women’s Employment In The US Health Care Sector

Janette Dill, Mignon Duffy

Health Policy and Management

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

14 Scopus citations

Abstract

The objective of this study was to describe how structural racism and sexism shape the employment trajectories of Black women in the US health care system. Using data from the American Community Survey, we found that Black women are more overrepresented than any other demographic group in health care and are heavily concentrated in some of its lowest-wage and most hazardous jobs. More than one in five Black women in the labor force (23 percent) are employed in the health care sector, and among this group, Black women have the highest probability of working in the long-term-care sector (37 percent) and in licensed practical nurse or aide occupations (42 percent). Our findings link Black women’s position in the labor force to the historical legacies of sexism and racism, dating back to the division of care work in slavery and domestic service. Our policy recommendations include raising wages across the low-wage end of the sector, providing accessible career ladders to allow workers in low-wage health care to advance, and addressing racism in the pipeline of health care professions.

Original language	English (US)
Pages (from-to)	265-272
Number of pages	8
Journal	Health Affairs
Volume	41
Issue number	2
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2021.01400
State	Published - Feb 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
Support was provided by the National Institute on Aging (Grant No. P30AG066613 to Phyllis Moen). The funding source had no role in the design and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of the data; and preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript. The authors thank Odichinma Akosionu J’Mag Karbeah, Chandra Waring, and Caitlin Carrol. This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon this work, for commercial use, provided the original work is properly cited. See https://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0/.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, Project HOPE. All rights reserved.

PubMed: MeSH publication types

Journal Article
Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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10.1377/hlthaff.2021.01400

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abstract = "The objective of this study was to describe how structural racism and sexism shape the employment trajectories of Black women in the US health care system. Using data from the American Community Survey, we found that Black women are more overrepresented than any other demographic group in health care and are heavily concentrated in some of its lowest-wage and most hazardous jobs. More than one in five Black women in the labor force (23 percent) are employed in the health care sector, and among this group, Black women have the highest probability of working in the long-term-care sector (37 percent) and in licensed practical nurse or aide occupations (42 percent). Our findings link Black women{\textquoteright}s position in the labor force to the historical legacies of sexism and racism, dating back to the division of care work in slavery and domestic service. Our policy recommendations include raising wages across the low-wage end of the sector, providing accessible career ladders to allow workers in low-wage health care to advance, and addressing racism in the pipeline of health care professions.",

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Structural Racism And Black Women’s Employment In The US Health Care Sector

Abstract

Bibliographical note

PubMed: MeSH publication types

UN SDGs

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