White women earn less that black women
 

Finally!

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/28/ed.../28income.html

March 28, 2005
Income Gaps Found Among the College-Educated
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON, March 28 (AP) - Black and Asian women with bachelor's degrees earn slightly more than similarly educated white women, and white men with four-year degrees make more than anyone else.

A white woman with a bachelor's degree typically earned $37,800 in 2003, compared with $43,700 for a college-educated Asian woman and $41,100 for a black woman, according to data to be released Monday by the Census Bureau. Hispanic women took home $37,600 a year.

The bureau did not say why the differences exist. Economists and sociologists suggest several possible factors: the tendency of minority women, especially blacks, to more often hold more than one job or work more than 40 hours a week, and the tendency of black professional women who take time off to have a child to return to the work force sooner than others.

Employers in some fields may give financial incentives to young black women, who graduate from college at higher rates than young black men, said Roderick Harrison, a researcher at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a research organization in Washington.

A white male with a college diploma earns far more than any similarly educated man or woman - $66,000 a year, the Census Bureau said. Among men with bachelor's degrees, Asians earned $52,000 a year, Hispanics $49,000 and blacks $45,000.

Workplace discrimination and the continuing difficulties of minorities to get into higher-paying management positions could help explain the disparities among men, experts say.

The figures come from the Census Bureau's annual look at educational achievement in America, culled from a survey in March 2004.

-Rudey

At what point in their life is this being sampled from?

I find it extremely doubtful that any group just out of college makes $66,000 a year. Unless these were all taken from the same point in their career (not necessarily age-wise) the figures will definitly be wrong.

if you look at historically...
white women have not had as much need to work as minority women. Plus you need to look at what the career percentages are.
The majority of white women I know are at Iowa State for things like sociology, Human nutrition, HRI, education.
The majority of minority women I know are at Iowa State for things like engineering, veterinary medicine, pre-med, pre-law etc.
Not sure if that's just anecdotal or if it mirrors any real trend, but that would provide for a wage gap if it was a real trend.

In an attempt to get this thread back on topic, I'm curious about one thing. The article mentions that one of the possible explanations of the difference is b/c minority women are more likely to hold more than one job. If gains are truly being made, then why would the minority women have to take on these extra jobs? It almost leads me to believe that there's still a disparity in pay occurring here.

It'd be interesting to measure the differences on a more standardized scale, such as comparing the salary of white women vs. minority women vs. white men filling the same positions.

It's more important to look at hourly wage.

Still it is somewhat interesting to see the totals made.

-Rudey

I know that in my personal experience, the Chinese girls I went to school with were more likely to lean towards business and sciences as majors than liberal arts. If you're, say, a history major, you really aren't going to expect to earn tons of money unless you go to law school. If you're in business, your chances of getting a job immediately after graduation are a bit higher.

good question.

I think what they did is add up the salaries of college grad women and it divide it by the number of women in the sample. This isn't really the best way to ascertain equality of earnings. The results are screwed up by the fact that some people have two jobs or are in different careers or have been working longer or shorter amounts of time.
I think that this does probably reflect a more even payscale between black and white female college grads. But it also reflects other problems. The black women in the study were more likely to have high salaries because they have two jobs or took less time off for childbearing. I imagine that's because most of them are married to minority men who still earn significantly less than white men.

Where did you get that "method"? This is the census by the way.

-Rudey

That was my understanding of both the article and the census. Why?

I don't think that's how the census works, but I'm not positive. I'm also pretty sure the article didn't say that. I think what they did was ask each person what their total yearly income along with other questions.

-Rudey

My point was that they weren't comparing people based on equivalent experience or equivalent jobs. They were just averaging.

Example:
All people are college grad women:

#1 - graduated 25 years ago and is at top salary - 120K
#2 - graduated last week and is in social work - 30K
#3 - just came back from taking 4 years off to raise kids 40K
#4 - works part time and raises kids 20K
White average is 52.5K

#1 - has two jobs (possible discrimination here - doesn't distinguish in terms of how much each job pays - only lists total amount earned) - 80K
#2 - graduated 25 years ago and is at top salary (discrimination here) - 110K
#3 - just came back from taking 6 months off to raise kids 55K
#4 - graduated last week and is in social work - 30K
Black average 68.75

See my point by averaging this way and not controlling for variables you can "hide" discrimination or get misleading results.

Note: this is an example I made up. Do not jump down my throat about where I got the numbers. It is just an example. Chill.

P.S. If I am wrong and this is not how it was done feel free to correct. It was just my interpretation from reading.

I'm not jumping down your throat so relax.

Anyway, yes that is what an average is. But I think what they were comparing is college-educated women. I understand what you're saying about how someone with 2 jobs that are below another person's 1 job can look like they make more money. I think that nobody denies that but the total amounts are also interesting right? It just leads to question of spending (and spending on a family is different from one person) also.

-Rudey

Re: White women earn less that black women
 

Exactly and this has always been the case.

In addition, minority women are more likely to be in the workforce whereas white women are "afforded" the opportunity to be stay-at-home wives and mothers.

So, why is this a cause for celebration?

No.

It is more interesting and socially significant to look at incomes within and across racial and ethnic groups for comparable education levels and occupational statuses. Many researchers have done and continue to do this, though.

Not controlling for number of jobs when calculating and comparing household incomes is good for Census purposes and relatively nothing more.