Remarkable African American Progress from 1970’s to 2025 in Professional Specialty and Management Occupations and Educational Attainment.
I recently posted an article on the occupational progress of African Americans from 2008 to 2025. A greater percentage of African Americans assumed professional roles in Management and Professional Specialty occupations. However, that progress was only 2 percentage points over the 17 year period. This seemed small. Upon reflection, I felt motivated to dig deeper. So, I began looking at Census and Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) back to 1972. This would be within the decade of Civil Rights legislation and the beginnings of Affirmative Action initiatives by Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. Let’s look at occupational distribution by male and female data at that time, 1972, compared to 2025.
In 1972 only 4 percent of black men were employed in Management by 2025, 28 percent likewise Black women improved their percentage from 2.1 percent to 40.9 percent.
In 1972 only 6.4 percent of Black men were employed in Professional and Related Services but by 2025 they were 25 percent of those so employed. Likewise Black women were 20.5 percent of Professional workers in 1972. In 2025, they improved their participation in this highest median pay group to 25,9 percent. Blacks in Service Occupations from 1972 to 2025 saw a slight percentage increase in such occupations – for men up about 3 percent from 17 percent to 19.6 percent. Black women experienced a significant increase in Service occupations. from 17.3 percent in 1972 to 36.8 percent in 2025. This percentage increase has been explained as the consequence of labor market structural changes with many black women over-time leaving private household work for better pay in commercial service occupations. Private household work was categorized separately from broader commercial “Service Occupations”. We do note that In 1972 only 3 percent of Black men worked in Private Households but nearly 27 percent of Black women were so employed.
I should note that some of the improved black participation in Professional and Management occupations seems to be attributable to structural growth in the Labor market with Management and Professional occupations growing from about 25 percent of all jobs in 1972 to 33 percent of all jobs in 2008 to 43 percent of all jobs in 2025. Associated with is growth is the increase in educational attainment of workers. In 1975, only 6.4 percent of African Americans had attained a Bachelor’s degree or more and by 2010, 20 percent. Finally by 2025 around 31 percent of African Americans workers had earned Bachelor’s degrees or more. I will note that adding Associate degrees or more attainment, in 2025 adds approximately 12 percent, resulting in 43 percent of employed African American workers holding college degrees.
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d23/tables/dt23_104.10.asp