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Title: Going Postal: What Black Employment in the Postal Service Reveals about the Increasing Cost of Racial Segregation, 1940-2000

Citation Type: Working Paper

Publication Year: 2007

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Abstract: Although economists largely agree that residential segregation has been harmful to African-American employment and earnings in recent decades, there is much less consensus about why this relationship emerged. This paper examines the association between segregation and the relative employment of black workers at the U.S. Postal Service, a large scale employer with facilities in every city in the United States. Relative to whites, black employment at the post office is an increasing function of segregation, but only after 1970. Postal facilities have remained concentrated in downtown areas, near black enclaves, even as other firms suburbanized. We argue that this pattern is consistent with explanations of bad ghettos that emphasize physical isolation, or spatial mismatch, rather than social isolation.

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Authors: Boustan, Leah Platt; Margo, Robert A.

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Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Housing and Segregation, Other, Race and Ethnicity

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