Social Networks and Employment Segregation among Hispanic Workers

Ted Mouw, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

In a recent paper, Mouw ("Are Black Workers Missing the Connection?" Demography 39:3 2002)found that informal hiring procedures increase employment segregation among black and white workers. In this paper, I use a similar approach to explore the effect of employee referrals and social segregation on inter-firm segregation among Hispanics. Using a sample of 2,500 firms from the employer survey of the Multi-City Study of Inequality (MCSUI) I test for the effect of employee referrals on the probability of hiring a Hispanic worker, contingent upon the racial composition of the firm's workers and the spatial location of the firm.