Differences Between Hispanic and White Job Seekers in Job Search Length, Salary, and the Role of Internship Experience

Search for this publication on Google Scholar
Wilde, N. (2023). Differences Between Hispanic and White Job Seekers in Job Search Length, Salary, and the Role of Internship Experience. Unc Charlotte Electronic Theses And Dissertations.
Download PDF

Analytics

5 views ◎
3 downloads ⇓


Abstract

Over recent years, progress has been made toward improving Hispanic American’s education and work outcomes. However, even among college graduates, Hispanic Americans face marked difficulty on the job market in terms of both salary and hiring (NCES, 2016; 2019). Research suggests that entry into the workforce after education is a critical and potentially stressful period in one’s career (Yang & Gysbers, 2007) and could be the starting point to a lifetime of cumulative disadvantage in income. Yet, a targeted examination of this critical time period is lacking in the literature, and focus remains mainly on long-term systemic solutions that are necessary but do not improve outcomes for current Hispanic graduates. This project aims to fill this gap by examining early job outcomes of Hispanic graduates relative to their White peers, providing insights about new entry to the workforce which may be leveraged in future research on early job seeking experiences. I analyzed secondary data collected by the career services center of a large, Southeastern university in the United States to assess how racioethnicity (Hispanic vs. White) relates to starting salary and job search length—time spent actively job searching before being hired—for graduates entering the full-time job market, with or without internship experience. The results indicate that there are no differences between White and Hispanic graduates in starting salary nor job search length nor does internship experience matter in the relationship between racioethnicity and job search length.

Details
Author

Wilde, Natalie

Title

Differences Between Hispanic and White Job Seekers in Job Search Length, Salary, and the Role of Internship Experience

Physical Description

1 online resource ( pages) : PDF

Date

2023

Degree Granting Institution

University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Abstract

Over recent years, progress has been made toward improving Hispanic American’s education and work outcomes. However, even among college graduates, Hispanic Americans face marked difficulty on the job market in terms of both salary and hiring (NCES, 2016; 2019). Research suggests that entry into the workforce after education is a critical and potentially stressful period in one’s career (Yang & Gysbers, 2007) and could be the starting point to a lifetime of cumulative disadvantage in income. Yet, a targeted examination of this critical time period is lacking in the literature, and focus remains mainly on long-term systemic solutions that are necessary but do not improve outcomes for current Hispanic graduates. This project aims to fill this gap by examining early job outcomes of Hispanic graduates relative to their White peers, providing insights about new entry to the workforce which may be leveraged in future research on early job seeking experiences. I analyzed secondary data collected by the career services center of a large, Southeastern university in the United States to assess how racioethnicity (Hispanic vs. White) relates to starting salary and job search length—time spent actively job searching before being hired—for graduates entering the full-time job market, with or without internship experience. The results indicate that there are no differences between White and Hispanic graduates in starting salary nor job search length nor does internship experience matter in the relationship between racioethnicity and job search length.

Genre

masters theses

Subjects--Topics

Psychology
Management

Degree

M.A.

Keywords

Income
Job Search
Racioethnicity

Subject Area

Psychology Industrial/Organizational

Advisor(s)

Shanock, Linda

Committee Members

Tonidandel, Scott
Kronberg, Anne-Kathrin

Degree Note

Thesis (M.A.)--University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 2023.

Rights Statement

This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s). For additional information, see http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/.

Rights Holder Information

Copyright is held by the author unless otherwise indicated.

Identifier

Wilde_uncc_0694N_13348

Permalink

http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.13093/etd:3322