1	Boyd, Robert .Race, Labor Market Disadvantage, and Survivalist Entrepreneurship: Black Women in the Urban North during the Great Depression. Sociological Forum, Vol.15, No. 4(Dec., 2000), pp.647-670. Springer http://www.jstor.org/stable/684977. 20/09/2009 African American Psychology Seminar By: Jaleesa Parks
2	Background Information Blacks have arguably been the most severely resource-disadvantaged group in American society and thus the sociological literature has attributed their low rate of small business ownership to resource disadvantage, a problem caused by the absence of a tradition of enterprise, the poverty of Black consumers, the social class division between Black Communities. In labor markets, the “double disadvantage” of racism and sexism relegated most Black women to the bottom of the employment queue, and as unemployment became widespread, many of these women were summarily dismissed from their jobs and replaced by Whites.
3	Disadvantage Theory According to the disadvantage theory of entrepreneurship, members of such oppressed groups must sometimes choose between joblessness or self-employment in small-scale entrepreneurial activities. When they choose the latter, they are “Survivalist entrepreneurships” persons who become self-employed in response to a desperate need to find an independent means of livelihood.
4	Literature Review In part, this is because it was very common for Black Women is that, with some notable exceptions, few sociological studies of ethnic enterprise have examined the informal economy of cities in the early twentieth century. (e.g., Light,1977) Sociological literature on ethic enterprise has implied that Blacks in general have failed to mount an entrepreneurial response to labor market disadvantage due to the lack of a cultural inclination toward self-employment. (e.g., Frazier, 1949:411; Loewn, 1971:41; Yancy, 1974:118). Accordingly, the resource-constraint version of the disadvantage theory holds that the entrepreneurial responses of Blacks to labor market disadvantage will be concentrated in the informal economy, that the peripheral sector of cash-based, unregulated, and irregular income-producing activities (Light and Rosenstein, 1995:160-161).
5	Boarding & Lodging House Keeping Entrepreneurial pursuit created for non-wage income and consumer’s need for temporary, affordable shelter. Great demand during the Great Depression and the Great Migration The number of Black families that needed to take in boarders and lodgers was considerable. According to one estimate, “at least one-third” of Black families in the urban North had lodgers or boarders during the Great Migration (Frazier, 1939/1966:342)
6	Hairdressing and Beauty Culture In fact, from 1890 to 1940, “barbers and hairdressers” were the largest segments of the Black business population, together comprising about one third of this population in 1940. (Oak, 1949:48) Blacks Tended to gravitate into these occupations because White barbers, hairdressers, and beauticians, were unwilling or unable to style the hair of Blacks or to provide the hair preparations and cosmetics used by them. Blacks then had a protected consumer market .(Drake and Cayton1945, Kinzer and Sagarin1950; Myrdal,1944;) Another factor was that beauty culture and hairdressing were easy occupations to enter. Training was often available from a local high school or “beauty college” and a salon could be established in a vacant storefront or in one’s own home (Boyd, 1996b:37; Drake and Cayton, 1945/1962)
7	Other Entrepreneurial Occupations Many of the women were home-based laundresses, taking in the laundry of middle-and upper-class Whites. Very common for Black women in the North and South during the Great Depression. Many women opened stores and restaurants, and such establishments proliferated during the Great Depression, as unemployed Blacks with modest savings opened small shops “as a means of securing a living (Frazier, 1949:405)” Yet, Black entrepreneurs were much less likely to enter these retail businesses than to enter personal service occupations because of financial, social, and human capital.
8	Hypothesis The involvement of Black women in boarding and lodging house keeping was positively associated with the disadvantage of these women in the labor market. The involvement of Black women in barbering, hairdressing, and beauty culture was positively associated with the labor market disadvantage of these women. There was a positive yet weak association between the employment of Black women as laundresses and the disadvantage of these women in the labor market.
9	Methodology Literature Review/Archival Research U.S. Bureau of the Census1940 7 occupational categories Indexes of occupational representation (IOR) BW per occupation/Black proportion of total employed women multiplied by 100
10	Conclusion The regression analyses, showed that the participation of Black women in these occupations was positively associated with the disadvantage of these women in the labor market. The strongest association between Black women’s labor market disadvantage and rates of occupational participation would be observed for boarding and lodging house keeping. The disadvantage of Black women in the labor market was positively associated with the involvement of these women in retail stores and in eating an drinking places Basically the regression analyses of Black and White women were consistent with the disadvantage theory.
11	Questions/Comments How does this compare to the economy in today’s society? What is cultural inclination and does it have an influence on African Americans becoming entrepreneurs?