This document is a summary of a doctoral thesis which was written to answer three questions. These are: (1) How important are personal characteristics of black workers in explaining the variance in their relative occupational standing among the private sectors of these cities? (2) How important are general characteristics of the cities and industries in which they work? and (3) What policies are most likely to improve the relative occupational standing of blacks employed in the private sector? The strategy for answering these questions was to develop measures of personal characteristics of black workers and of general characteristics of the labor markets and industries where they work. Answers derived through the use of this strategy include the following: (1) Personal characteristics of blacks such as their education and age are important, but less so, then general characteristics of the cities in which they work, in predicting their relative occupational standing; (2) Black women have greater chances of achieving occupational parity in cities where in-migration is not great; (3) Occupational parity for black men depends on greater access to manufacturing and unionized industries, where the demand for white collar workers is weak. (Author/JS)