Racial Gap: Evidence from Congressional Staff

44 Pages Posted: 18 Nov 2021

See all articles by Fred Gui

Fred Gui

University of Rochester

Date Written: November 15, 2021

Abstract

The question of “who participates?” is closely linked with the quality of political representation. However, little attention is given to the participation of racial minorities as congressional staff on Capitol Hill. Here, I show that racial gaps exist in this context. Using a comprehensive dataset of over sixteen thousand congressional staffers from the 107th Congress to the 113th Congress, I find a relatively low presence of minority staffers in both the Senate and House. I also find that minority staffers are more likely to occupy lower rank positions with fewer promotion chances. These findings have important ramifications for understanding racial equality empirically and theoretically.

Keywords: minority staff; racial gap; congressional office; descriptive representation

Suggested Citation

Gui, Fred, Racial Gap: Evidence from Congressional Staff (November 15, 2021). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3965835 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3965835

Fred Gui (Contact Author)

University of Rochester ( email )

Rochester, NY
United States
2027057308 (Phone)
14620 (Fax)

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