From dark to light: Skin color and wages among African-Americans (original) (raw)
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On the Blurring of the Color Line: Wages and Employment for Black Males of Different Skin Tones
Review of Economics and Statistics, 2015
We evaluate the role skin color plays in earnings and employment for black males in the NLSY97. By applying a novel, scaled measure of skin tone to a nationally representative sample and by estimating the evolution of labor market differentials over time, we bridge a burgeoning literature on skin color with more established literatures on wage differentials and labor market discrimination. We find that while intraracial wage gaps widen with experience, gaps between the lightest-skinned black workers and whites remain constant, suggesting that a blurring of the color line elicits subtle yet meaningful variation in earnings differentials over time.
Social Science Research, 2004
Using an unusually detailed definition of jobs (labor market-occupation-industry cells), I assess whether the Black-White wage gap increases as one ascends the wage hierarchy of local labor markets. Additionally, I test whether the tendency for Black-dominated jobs to pay less than other jobs is stronger among jobs that offer high pay relative to other jobs in the local labor market. There are several important results from the hierarchical linear models. First, there is a substantial net pay penalty associated with Black-dominated jobs, and there is some evidence that this penalty is stronger for Black workers than Whites. Second, the job racial composition effect is weaker among high-paying jobs. In contrast, the net pay gap within jobs is positively associated with the overall pay in a job, implying that ensuring equal access to high-paying jobs will only a partially ameliorate Black-White wage inequality.
Three Essays on the Black White Wage Gap
2009
During the 1960s and early 1970s, the black -white wage gap narrowed significantly, but has remained constant since the late 1980s. The black -white wage gap in the recent period may reflect differences in human capital. A key component of human capital is labor market experience. The first chapter of this dissertation examines how differences in the returns and patterns of experience accumulation affect the blackwhite wage gap. Accounting for differences in the nature of experience accumulation does not explain the very large gap in wages between blacks and whites. Instead, the wage gap seems to be driven by constant differences between blacks and whites which may represent unobserved differences in skill or the effects of discrimination. The second chapter of the dissertation examines the role of discrimination in explaining the wage gap by asking whether statistical discrimination by employers causes the wages of never incarcerated blacks to suffer when the incarceration rate of blacks in an area increases. I find little evidence that black incarceration rates negatively affect the wages of never incarcerated blacks. Instead, macroeconomic effects in areas with higher incarceration rates play a more important role in explaining the variation in black wages. The third and final chapter of the dissertation examines the black -white wage gap and its determinants across the entire wage distribution to determine if the factors that are driving the wage gap vary across the distribution. I find that at the top of the conditional distribution, differences in the distribution of characteristics explain relatively more of the blackwhite wage gap than differences in the prices of characteristics. At the bottom of the conditional distribution, differences in the distribution of characteristics explain relatively more of the wage gap-although this finding varies across different specifications of the model.
Racial Wage Inequality: Job Segregation and Devaluation across U.S. Labor Markets
Despite decades of research showing greater black-white inequality in local areas where the black population is relatively large, little is known about the mechanisms for this effect. Using a unique data set of individuals nested within jobs across labor markets, this article tests two possible mechanisms for the black concentration effect on wage inequality: job segregation and devaluation. Results show that black population size is associated with greater segregation of black workers into black-dominated jobs. On the other hand, no evidence is found that the penalty for working in a black-dominated job (the devaluation effect) increases as a function of black population size. The article concludes that discrimination against workers—especially exclusion from better-paying jobs—is an important mechanism for the effect of black population size on the racial wage gap.
Black–White Wage Differentials in a Multiple Sample Selection Bias Model
Atlantic Economic Journal, 2008
This paper simultaneously incorporates two sources of selection bias in the black-white wage equations. It demonstrates that the biases due to an individual's propensity to be in the labor force and the firm's hiring practices are important in determining the black-white wage differential and failure to account for both biases will result in inaccurate estimation of the black-white wage differential. The results indicate a moderate contribution (4.3 percent) of the selectivity biases variables to the wage differential between blacks and whites. The results also show that the black-white wage differential for all black and white workers and across gender decreases as more sources of selection bias are identified and incorporated in the wage equation. The implication is that the observed unadjusted black and white wage gap may be overstated if the wage equation is not adjusted for selection bias. We found that adjusting for double selection bias in the wage equation, the black-white female wage gap is 26 percent larger than the black-white male wage gap, and 12.1 percent larger when we adjust for a single selection bias. The small total effect values of the selection bias due to an individual's participation decision indicate that the black and white labor force participation decisions may be similar, while the black-white participation decisions may differ. The results seem to suggest that at the macro level, the enforcement of policies related to racial issues in the labor market will likely lead to a reduction in the black-white wage gap. Also, policies designed to encourage black males' labor force participation and enforcement of anti-discriminatory laws may be effective in reducing the black-white male's wage differential.
The Structure of Disadvantage: Individual and Occupational Determinants of the Black-White Wage Gap
American Sociological Review, 2001
Rob Warren, and four anonymous ASR reviewers for their helpful comments on early drafts. Our research was supported in part by a grant to the University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for Demography and Ecology (NICHD HD 05876). The second author gratefully acknowledges support from the Jacob K. Javits Fellowship. Order of authorship is alphabetical and does not reflect differences in the contributions of the authors; this is a collaborative project. This paper was awarded the James A. Thompson Award from the ASA section on Organizations, Occupations, and Work, August 2001. acterized by two opposing trends. On one hand, unprecedented numbers of black men were employed in high-level professional, managerial, and technical occupations (Farley 1996). Occupational segregation had declined appreciably over the preceding two
International Economic Review, 2003
This article presents the structural estimation of the parameters of a statistical discrimination model. Although the model is capable of displaying multiple equilibria, an estimation strategy that identifies both the model parameters and the equilibrium selected by the economic agents is developed and empirically implemented. A comparison between the selected equilibria and the other potential equilibria reveals that the decline in wage inequality experienced in the U.S. economy cannot be attributed to changes in the equilibrium selection. Nonetheless, a counterfactual experiment shows that in a color-blind society blacks' wage would have been on average more than 20% higher. * Manuscript his invaluable advice and encouragement. I also received help and useful comments from .
Labor Earnings, Discrimination, and the Racial Composition of Jobs
The Journal of Human Resources, 1992
This paper examines the effect of the racial composition of labor markets on wage rates and the racial wage gap. The wage rates of white as well as black workers are significantly lower in industry-occupationregional groups with high densities of black workers, while the racial wage gap does not vary systematically with respect to racial density. Interpretation of racial gap estimates can be sensitive to inclusion of a racial density variable, particularly in sparse specifications. An explanation for the wage-density relationship cannot be established, but results are most consistent with a quality sorting explanation and, to a lesser extent, the crowding hypothesis.
Performance Pay and the White-Black Wage Gap
Journal of Labor Economics, 2012
We show that the reported tendency for performance pay to be associated with greater wage inequality at the top of the earnings distribution applies only to white workers. This results in the white-black wage dierential among those in performance pay jobs growing over the earnings distribution even as the same dierential shrinks over the distribution for those not in performance pay jobs. We show this remains true even when examining suitable counterfactuals that hold observables constant between whites and blacks. We explore reasons behind our nding that performance pay is associated with greater racial earnings gaps at the top of the wage distribution focusing on the interactions between discrimination, unmeasured ability and selection. JEL: J15, J31, J33