The labor market is the site of longstanding and persistent inequalities across race and gender groups in hiring, compensation, and advancement. In this paper, we draw on data from 13,574 hourly service-sector workers to extend the study of intersectional labor market inequalities to workers’ experience on the job. In the service sector, where workers are regularly expected to be on their feet for long hours and contend with intense and unrelenting workloads, regular break time is an essential component of job quality and general well-being. Yet, we find that Black women are less likely than their counterparts to get a break during their work shift. Although union membership and laws mandating work breaks are effective in increasing access to breaks for workers overall, they do not ameliorate the inequality Black women face in access to work breaks within the service sector. A sobering implication is that worker power and labor protections can raise the floor on working conditions but leave inequalities intact. Our findings also have implications for racial health inequalities, as the routine daily stress of the service sector takes a disproportionate toll on the health of Black women.

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劳动力市场是不同种族和性别群体在招聘、薪酬和晋升方面长期存在不平等的地方。在本文中，我们利用 13,574 名服务业小时工的数据，将跨部门劳动力市场不平等的研究扩展到工人的工作经历。在服务业，工人通常需要长时间站立并应对紧张而持续的工作量，因此定期休息时间是工作质量和总体福祉的重要组成部分。然而，我们发现黑人女性比她们的同行更不可能在轮班期间休息。尽管工会会员资格和规定工作休息的法律可以有效地增加工人整体的休息时间，但它们并没有改善黑人妇女在服务行业内获得工作休息机会所面临的不平等。一个发人深省的含义是，工人权力和劳动保护可以提高工作条件的底线，但不会造成不平等。我们的研究结果也对种族健康不平等产生了影响，因为服务部门的日常压力对黑人女性的健康造成了不成比例的损害。

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