Experts are scratching their heads about why corporate efforts to bring more women into the executive ranks have made progress in recent years, while increased racial diversity has remained stubbornly out of reach. But a new report makes clear that current methods are either accomplishing too little or are not working at all.
The study found that only 8 percent of people employed in white-collar professions are black, and the proportion falls sharply at higher rungs of the corporate ladder, especially when jumping from middle management to the executive level.
According to the survey, black millennials are more likely than the black professionals who came before them to feel they have a responsibility to represent their race, and they are more likely to feel they should bring their authentic selves to the office.
They are also more likely to be dreaming about leaving their current job if the one they have does not offer fair and ample opportunities for growth, creating the risk of a costly brain drain
Black professionals do not want to be lumped under the umbrella of "people of color." Not only does it flatten their experience within the wider pool of underrepresented groups, the study says, it assumes that all black people in the workplace experience it the same way.
The black immigrant population in the United States has increased fivefold since 1980, and black immigrants often have different perspectives than American-born black people on what it means to be black in America. According to the report, white people tend to prefer and give better opportunities to Afro-Caribbeans over African-Americans, and African-Americans are more likely than immigrants from Africa to say that colleagues have underestimated their intelligence.
Full-time professionals of Afro-Caribbean descent are more likely than those with African or African-American roots to have access to senior corporate leaders, the study found. "Heritage shapes black professionals' experience of the workplace in profound ways," the report says, contributing to hierarchies that are rarely discussed.