The Pursuit of Social Equity in the Federal Government: A Road Less Traveled?

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6210.2009.01984.x
• Published date: 01 May 2009
• Date: 01 May 2009

The Pursuit of Social Equity in the Federal Government 373

Norma M. Riccucci

Rutgers University, Newark

 e Pursuit of Social Equity in the Federal

Government: A Road Less Traveled?

Senior–Junior

Exchange:

The Concept of

Social Equity

Reconsidered

Norma M. Riccucci is a professor of

public administration at Rutgers University

in Newark. Her research and teaching

interests encompass the broad area of

public management. She is currently the

president of the Public Management

Research Association and a fellow of the

National Academy of Public Administration.

E-mail: riccucci@rutgers.edu

 is descriptive study examines the extent to which the

federal government has achieved social equity in its

workforce. In particular, the author addresses the degree

to which white women and people of color have been

successful in reaching the upper, higher-paying levels of

nonpostal federal government jobs.  e study shows that,

with few exceptions, these groups, despite continued calls

for greater equity, remain in lower-level, lower-paying,

less prestigious jobs.

In response to a television reporter who stated

that “racial progress takes time,” James Baldwin

of‌f ered this telling response: “It has taken my

mother’s time, my father’s time, my brothers and

my sisters’ time, my nieces and my nephews’ time.

How much time do you want for your progress?”

—Dwight A. McBride, James Baldwin Now, 1999

The progress that women and people of color

have made in this nation in terms of jobs and

education can reasonably lead one to conclude

that the glass is either half full or half empty. Policy

analysts, demographers, and other social scientists have

through the years tracked f‌l uctuations in household

income, employment, and education to report on de-

velopments in socioeconomic status across the coun-

try. More often than not, the outcomes of their studies

show that people of color

continue to lag behind whites,

and that women continue to lag

behind men. Recommendations

for improving the overall

condition of those groups who

are perpetually left behind are

of‌f ered, but the inequities and

inequalities perdure. So, is the

glass half empty?

In some corners, however, tangible progress has been

reported. For example, depending on the measures,

there has been some improvement in the employment

status of white women and people of color in public

sector jobs.  e plethora of representative bureauc-

racy studies, especially those beginning with Krislov’s

(1974) and Rosenbloom’s (1977), which provided sig-

nif‌i cant baseline analyses, illustrate that white women

and people of color hold government jobs at the

federal, state, and local levels in equal and sometimes

greater proportions compared to their concentration

in the general population (see, e.g., Guy 1992, 1993;

Meier 1993; Meier and Smith 1994; Naf‌f 2001;

Rice 2005; Wise 1990). However, conceptualizing

representativeness quite dif‌f erently shows that white

women and people of color are segregated in the low-

er-paying, lower-status jobs in government (see Naf‌f

2001; Wise 1990). So, then, is the glass half empty or

half full? Perhaps the progress that women and people

of color have made in the federal service can be best

characterized by the title of Mary Guy’s cogent 1993

study on the integration of women into federal jobs:

“ ree Steps Forward, Two Steps Backward.”

 e present article examines patterns of social equity

in federal employment.1 It constructs social equity in

terms of justice, fairness, and equality in the distribu-

tion of federal jobs across racial, ethnic, and gender

lines. In particular, it examines the degree to which

the federal government f‌i lls jobs in its upper levels

equally and fairly in terms of race, gender, and ethnic-

ity. It looks at employment patterns by grade and

salary between 1984 and 2004

in order to determine the extent

to which women and people

of color have made progress

in gaining entry into the more

powerful, higher-paying, pres-

tigious ranks of the federal gov-

ernment. An examination of the

types of agencies in which each

of these demographic groups is

employed also reveals the degree

to which occupational segregation persists in federal

bureaus. While previous studies have tended to lump

people of color into one category, this study breaks the

data down by each group.

 e progress that women and

people of color have made in

this nation in terms of jobs and

education can reasonably lead

one to conclude that the glass is

either half full or half empty.

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