Culture matters: America’s African Diaspora and labor market outcomes

Mason, Patrick (2009): Culture matters: America’s African Diaspora and labor market outcomes.

Abstract

This paper contrasts the explanatory power of the mono-cultural and diversity models of racial disparity. The mono-cultural model ignores nativity and ethnic differences among African Americans. The diversity model assumes that culture affects both intra- and interracial labor market disparity. The diversity model seeks to enhance our ability to understand the relative merits of culture versus market discrimination as determinants of racial inequality in labor market outcomes. Our results are consistent with the diversity model of racial inequality. Specifically, racial disparity consists of the following outcomes: 1) persistent racial wage and employment effects between both native and immigrant African Americans and whites, 2) limited ethnicity effects among African Americans, 3) diverse employment and wage effects among native and immigrant African Americans, 4) intra-racial wage penalties (premiums) for immigrant (native) African Americans, and 5) evidence of relatively higher unobserved productivity-linked attributes among Caribbean-English immigrants. There are regional and intertemporal variations in these inequalities.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: racial discrimination, racial inequality, immigration, identity, African American, Caribbean, African Diaspora, wage discrimination, employment discrimination, Hispanic, acting white, multi-racial, skin shade
• Subjects: J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J3 - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs > J31 - Wage Level and Structure ; Wage Differentials; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J2 - Demand and Supply of Labor > J21 - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J6 - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers > J61 - Geographic Labor Mobility ; Immigrant Workers; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J1 - Demographic Economics > J15 - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants ; Non-labor Discrimination; Z - Other Special Topics > Z1 - Cultural Economics ; Economic Sociology ; Economic Anthropology > Z13 - Economic Sociology ; Economic Anthropology ; Social and Economic Stratification; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J7 - Labor Discrimination; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J1 - Demographic Economics > J16 - Economics of Gender ; Non-labor Discrimination

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