Professional Work in a ‘Post-Racial’ Era: Black Health Care Workers in the New Economy

April 13
12:30-1:50pm
Online

Hosted by the NYU Center for Advanced Social Science Research (CASSR) and NYU Population Center

What happens to black professionals when work transforms? In an era of rapid technological change, shrinking protections for workers, and growing income inequality, work is no longer the secure, stable, predictable path to economic stability that it once was for some segments of the population. Instead, organizations today focus on shedding labor, cutting costs, and increasing shareholder returns. At the same time, however, many organizations also profess an interest in meeting the needs of an increasingly diverse population. How do they manage the tensions of adapting to these neoliberal ideals in a more multiracial society?

This research study focuses on black professionals in the healthcare industry to answer this question. Using in depth interviews, field observations, and survey data analysis, Professor Adia Harvey Wingfield show how work transformation fundamentally changes the labor black professionals do within and outside of organizations. This labor varies by occupational status and gender, leaving black men and black women with divergent responsibilities depending on their position in the organizational hierarchy. Ultimately, this research identifies new challenges for organizations and reveals an additional way that racial inequality gets perpetuated in the new economy.

About the Speaker:
Adia Harvey Wingfield is the Mary Tileston Hemenway Professor of Arts & Sciences and Vice Dean for Faculty Development and Diversity at Washington University in St. Louis. Her research examines how and why racial and gender inequality persists in professional occupations. Professor Wingfield has lectured internationally on her research in this area, and her work has been published in numerous peer-reviewed journals including Annual Review of Sociology, Gender & Society, and American Sociological Review. She has served as President of both Sociologists for Women in Society (SWS) and the Southern Sociological Society (SSS), and is an elected member of the Sociological Research Association. In addition to her academic scholarship, Professor Wingfield writes regularly for mainstream outlets including Slate, The Atlantic, Vox, and Harvard Business Review. She is the recipient of multiple awards including the 2013 Richard A. Lester Award from Princeton University for her book No More Invisible Man: Race and Gender in Men’s Work; the 2018 Public Understanding of Sociology award from the American Sociological Association; and the 2019 C. Wright Mills Award from the Society for the Study of Social Problems (SSSP) for her most recent book, Flatlining: Race, Work, and Health Care in the New Economy.