Managers' race has had a “significant” effect on the race of employees, according to a study of personnel data from a U.S. retailer over 30 months.

The study looked at whether the race of a store's manager affected that of the employees hired at the store. The most significant tendency, the study said, was that white, Hispanic or Asian managers tended to hire fewer African-Americans than African-American managers did.

The study tracked about 100,000 employees at more than 700 stores belonging to one unidentified chain from February 1996 to July 1998.

“Manager Race and the Race of New Hires,” by Laura Giuliano, David Levine and Jonathan Leonard, was in the October issue of the “Journal of Labor Economics.”


SMOKE-FREE ALLIES: The strongest American advocates for smoking bans in public venues are the newest Americans, one study said.

Immigrants and their children were most likely to approve of smoke-free spaces, according to an analysis of data from the U.S. Census' Current Population Survey from 1995 to 2002.

Over those years, 75.7 percent of foreign-born U.S. residents supported a smoking ban in at least four types of public space, while 59.1 percent of U.S.-born Americans with U.S.-born parents did so. Of the total population, 61.6 percent said they would support a ban in at least four of the six venues listed, including bars, restaurants, offices, hospitals, and indoors sports venues and shopping malls.

“It is surprising that most of the immigrants had stronger attitudes,” said study author Theresa Osypuk. But immigrants were much less likely to be smokers than U.S.-born residents, she said. According to the World Health Organization, smoking is more prevalent in the U.S. than in most of Africa; southeast Asia, excluding Indonesia; and Latin America - including Mexico. Mexico is the most common country of origin for foreign-born Americans.

Smokers were less likely to favor bans.

The report will be in the January issue of the American Journal of Public Health.