Research

My research examines gender and race inequality, organizations, and the law. The primary goal of my work is to understand how alternative organizational and legal environments contribute to variation in gender and race inequality. Much of my research in this area focuses on employment discrimination and the consequences of federal anti-discrimination laws for labor market inequality.

I am currently working on a project that identifies the organizational origins of sex and race discrimination charges filed under federal equal employment opportunity laws and the effect of such charges and their outcomes on changes in sex and race inequality in the workplace. Other projects include a study of the impact of human resources practices on discrimination disputes; an analysis of how status characteristics and workplace context influence workers’ self reports of race discrimination; and a study of the extent of occupational segregation by sex, race, ethnicity, and Hispanicity in the U.S. labor force.

I teach courses in the areas of inequality, organizations, and research methods.

Publications

The following is a list of some recent publications. Please see CV for a complete list.

Hirsh, Elizabeth and Julie Kmec. 2009. "Human Resource Structures: Reducing Discrimination or Raising Rights Awareness?" Industrial Relations 48(3):512-32.

Hirsh, C. Elizabeth. 2009. "The Strength of Weak Enforcement: The Impact of Discrimination Charges on Sex and Race Segregation in the Workplace." American Sociological Review 74(2):245-71.

Hirsh, C. Elizabeth. 2008. "Settling for Less? The Organizational Determinants of Discrimination-Charge Outcomes." Law and Society Review 42(2):239-274.

Hirsh, C. Elizabeth and Sabino Kornrich. 2008. "The Context of Discrimination: Workplace Conditions, Institutional Environments, and Sex and Race Discrimination Charges." American Journal of Sociology 113(5): 1394-1432.