ABSTRACT
It is common for scholars interested in race and poverty to invoke a lack of access to job networks as a reason why minorities face difficulties in the labor market (e.g., Royster 2003; Wilson 1996). Previous studies on this issue, however, have produced mixed results. Minorities have been found to be more likely to have obtained their job through networks than nonminorities (e.g., Elliott 1999). Yet, these jobs pay less than jobs obtained by other means (e.g., Falcon 1995). Rather than exclusion from white networks (e.g., Royster 2003), the emphasis in the literature has shifted to minorities’ over-reliance on ethnic networks. Thus, the imagery that emerges from these studies is that minorities are stuck in the “wrong networks,” that is, those that lead to low-wage jobs.
