As the S. Frank Miyamoto Professor of Sociology at the University of Washington, Reskin studies labor market stratification, examining job queues, nonstandard work, sex segregation, and affirmative action policies in employment and university admissions, mechanisms of work-place discrimination, and the role of credit markets in income poverty and inequality.
[1] After a brief stint at Reed College, Reskin moved to Cleveland, Ohio, where she was involved in the Congress on Racial Equality.
Reskin returned to the Pacific Northwest and received her bachelor's degree, in 1968, and Ph.D., in 1973, from the University of Washington.
[1] Reskin served on the Board of Overseers of the General Social Survey and on several National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council committees.
Other honors include the Cheryl Miller-Sociologists for Women in Society Lecturership and the SWS Mentorship Award.
Barbara Reskin is known for her expansion and use of queuing theory to explain the persistence sex segregation in the workplace despite the movement of many women into new occupational fields.
The third factor was the emergence of a sex-specific demand for women which reflected the changes in the ordering of labor queues.
[3] After anti-discrimination laws were passed, employers were concerned about the costs—both monetarily and reputation-based—that they would run into by hiring solely men.