Black-White Inequality in Reading and Math Across K-12 Schooling: A Synthetic Cohort Perspective

While much has been written on the racial gap in achievement, few national studies have assessed the gap’s trajectory over K-12 schooling. The reason for this is understandable—most national data sets do not contain respondent information for this entire educational period. I utilize survey data from three national data sets containing White and Black students to document the trajectory of reading and math inequality between school entry and the end of high school. An attempt to clarify these observed patterns is made by assessing changes in the score distributions of these students across grade level, and examining how Black score distributions would fare if held to the White score distributions. Findings suggest that efforts to equalize achievement disparities must not only focus on “bringing the bottom up”, but also on keeping the top Black achievers on pace with the top White achievers across grade level.     

Using the Blinder-Oaxaca Decomposition Method to Measure Racial Bias in Achievement Tests

The Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition technique is typically applied to gender or racial earnings gaps with the goal of determining the percent of the gap that can be attributed to differences in attributes between groups and to labor market discrimination. We apply this technique to the racial gap in achievement tests with the goal of measuring the relative racial bias of these tests. The Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) and the Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT) were administered to respondents from the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Decomposition results indicate that up to 49.5 % of the white-black gap in the PIAT is explained by racial differences in average attributes. The corresponding figure for the ASVAB is 44.7 %. Since the same sample and specification are used in estimating ASVAB and PIAT scores, the difference in the percent of the gaps due to attributes can be ascribed to test score bias and not omitted variable bias. Therefore, the results suggest that the “discrimination” or bias of the ASVAB is greater than the PIAT.     

What the Achievement Gap Conversation is Missing

There is a persistent achievement gap that persists between students of color and their white counterparts. This is a national crisis and is one of the biggest problems facing American society. However, this research should consider two phenomena regarding the gap: adolescent perceptions of racial discrimination and racial identity. Among African American youth, perceptions of discrimination have been negatively linked to diminished achievement motivation, grade point average and school engagement. Yet, racial identity has been shown to be an effective protective factor for perceived discrimination in relation to academic achievement. Thus, addressing the achievement gap requires consideration of these two complex constructs for African American youth.     

Racial Earnings Disparities and Family Structure

One explanation for the widening of racial earnings gaps among family heads during the 1980s is that black families were increasingly headed by females during that period. This explanation is tested using data on black and white family heads in 1976 and 1985 from the Institute for Research on Poverty's Current Population Survey. Log-earnings equations, corrected for selection bias and for the endogeneity of labor force participation, are estimated for blacks and whites in 1976 and 1985. If the impact of rising female-family headship on labor force participation is ignored, one finds support for the family structure explanation. But support for alternative explanations is also found. There are substantial impacts of within-race gender discrimination and of market racial discrimination. When the endogeneity of family structure is taken into account, further support is found for the view that endowment differences only explain a modest portion of the rising gap in earnings between black and white family heads.     

The Impact of Racial Discrimination on the Early Career Outcomes of Young Men

The NLSY dataset is utilized to measure the extent of employer wage discrimination between white and black males during their first 5 years of post-school employment. We look at the respondent’s first job and the jobs 1 and 5 years after school completion. Oaxaca wage decompositions are employed to gauge the effect of discrimination. Consistent with our hypothesis, we find that the discrimination component of the wage gap falls over time. For the first job out of school the unexplained wage gap between blacks and whites is 35%. By year 5, the unexplained component falls to about 13%. Thus, while discrimination continues to play a role in explaining the white–black wage gap over time, its impact decreases as time in the labor market increases.

Glass ceiling or sticky floor? Evidence from a distributional approach of the gender wage gap among PhD holders in South Korea

This study examines the gender wage gap, to explore whether a glass ceiling (large unexplained wage gaps in the upper percentiles) or sticky floor (large unexplained wage gaps in the lower percentiles) exists in the wage distribution of the most educated Koreans. This study focuses on seeking these distributional patterns for a theoretically homogeneous gender group, relying on a smaller dataset of PhD holders. Counterfactual methods combining recentered influence function decomposition with propensity score matching allow us to estimate how the wage gap between statistically similarly matched males and females, varies across the unconditional wage distribution. There is evidence of a strong sticky floor and a limited glass ceiling among Korean PhD holders. Results show that a negative relationship between a high level of education and the gender wage gap cannot be taken for granted, at least in South Korea. Even female PhD holders suffer from gender discrimination, especially when they are at the bottom end of the wage distribution.     

Wage Dynamics and Racial and Ethnic Occupational Segregation Among Less-Educated Men in Metropolitan Labor Markets

We assess whether occupational segregation in metropolitan labor markets is associated with the wages of, and contributes to racial/ethnic wage disparities among, less-educated men. To measure occupational segregation in metropolitan low wage markets, we create a segregation index measuring segregation between white, black, and Latino male high school-only educated workers and high school dropouts in 95 metropolitan labor markets utilizing a unique dataset of the structural characteristics of the ninety-five largest US metropolitan labor markets. We use regression, fixed effects, and generalized least squares estimation techniques to test whether this index is associated with wages and racial wage inequality among these men. The analyses reveal that in metropolitan labor markets characterized by more racial and ethnic segmentation in the low wage market, wages are lower among black and Latino men in particular, and racial-ethnic wage disparities among similarly less-educated white, black, and Latino men are higher.     

Race,revenues, and college basketball

Customer discrimination may result in racial differences in the marginal revenue products generated by workers. College basketball data allow for direct comparisons of the racial differences in the marginal revenues generated by players. This article compares the revenue generating potential of the top black and white college basketball players. A highly skilled white college player generates over $100,000 in per game revenues as compared to around $30,000 for a black player of equal talent, providing a strong incentive for colleges to discriminate against recruiting black student-athletes.     

The Whiter the Better? Racial Composition and Access to School Resources for Black Students

Rigorous courses are an important resource, distributed within schools, that merit attention as a central determinant of student achievement and future outcomes (Cook and Evans, J Labor Econ. 18(4):729–754, 2000; Rose and Betts, Rev Econ Stat. 86(2):497–513, 2004). Yet, black students are less likely to be enrolled in advanced courses in general (ex. Darity et al. 2001; Klopfenstein, Contemp Econ Pol. 23(3):416–28, 2005) and specifically Algebra 1 in middle school (Riley 1997). Debate exists around the potential benefits or drawbacks for black students attending highly integrated schools relative to highly segregated schools. This study examines which school characteristics are associated with large disparities in black student enrollment in Algebra 1 relative to white student enrollment in Algebra 1 in the same middle schools in North Carolina. Of particular interest is the relationship between access and the percentage of white students in a school. The study finds that: (1) black students are underrepresented in Algebra 1 in essentially all schools in North Carolina; (2) the largest disparities occur in schools that are highly integrated while the disparities are reduced in schools that are either large majority white or large majority non-white; (3) schools with a larger share of white teachers are related to larger disparities between black and white students; (4) the marginal effects of racial composition on the relative disparity in enrollment are significantly larger for black females than black males.     

The Declining Contribution of Socioeconomic Disparities to the Racial Gap in Infant Mortality Rates, 1920-1970

This article examines the racial gap in infant mortality rates from 1920 to 1970. Using state-level panel data with information on income, urbanization, women's education, and physicians per capita, we can account for a large portion of the racial gap in infant mortality rates between 1920 and 1945. The educational gap between white and nonwhite women was especially important in this regard. In the postwar period, socioeconomic characteristics account for a declining portion of the racial infant mortality gap. We discuss the postwar experience in light of trends in birth weight, maternal characteristics, smoking and breast-feeding behavior, air pollution, and insurance coverage.     

The black scholar: An endangered species

This article explores black participation in scholarly careers. Relatively few blacks have been pursuing graduate training to complete research doctorates, especially in the disciplines of engineering, mathematics and physical sciences, where a mere 1 percent of the doctorates granted were awarded to blacks. The article also examines a major determinant of this low rate of black participation—losses from the education pipeline. The analysis covers losses after completion of high school. Although large, these losses do not differ substantially between black students and nonblack students, suggesting that the origins of the low participation of blacks are located at the precollege level. The analysis also finds no substantial differences in participation among high-achieving black and nonblack students. The article closes with a discussion of the role the scholarly community can play in recruiting more black talent to scholarly careers.     

A note on the apparent constancy of the racial wage gap in New Jersey manufacturing, 1902 to 1979

Conclusion This discussion around the black-white wage gap will continue. Inadequate data alone will make it difficult to distinguish recent fluctuations and once-only changes from long-term trends. For those who believe the racial wage gap is narrowing, the 1902 New Jersey survey of blacks in manufacturing presents a puzzle. Why at the outset of black entry into this sector of the economy do we find a racial wage gap as narrow as the one observed for New Jersey manufacturing in 1969, a year at the top of the post-World War II business cycle? Michael Reich argues that “in every region but the South the relative income of non-white males shows substantial cyclical fluctuations… but shows no upward trend over time.” The baseline established by the 1902 New Jersey survey is compatible with Reich’s conclusion.     

Flying Ducks? Girls’ Schooling in Rural Vietnam: A Revisit

In Vietnam, girls are colloquially referred to as 'flying ducks' as they are regarded as a loss to the family upon marriage. Using the Vietnam Living Standards Surveys of 1992–1993 and 1997–1998, the method of Doiron and Riddell (1994) is applied to decompose the probability gap of being in school to explore gender differences in children's education and changes over time. The unexplained component is found to account for most of the observed gender probability gap in each period. Over time, however, the gap has narrowed. The explained component (namely, household income and children's involvement in housework or work activities) contributes to the narrowing gap. Cutting the indirect cost of education for girls (forgone contribution in work and housework) is crucial in ensuring girls have the same education opportunities as boys do.     

How and why do Chinese urban students outperform their rural counterparts?

This paper aims to measure and understand the rural–urban student cognitive ability gap in China. Using the China Education Panel Survey (CEPS) 2013/2014 data, we find that the cognitive ability test scores of urban students are approximately 1.41 points (17%) higher than those of rural students, on average. This difference is equivalent to 37 and 41% of the standard deviation of urban and rural students' test scores, respectively. Instead of the raw test score, when the cognitive ability is estimated with the 3-parameter Logistic item response theory model, the rural–urban gap is somewhat reduced. The regression and Oaxaca–Blinder decomposition analyses show that nearly one-half of the rural–urban gap can be accounted for by differences in observed characteristics, especially number of siblings, parental education, and interaction between parents and teachers. We then discuss the policy implications of these results and propose a few potential ways to reduce the rural–urban gap in students' cognitive abilities.     

Compositional Effects,Segregation and Test Scores: Evidence From the National Assessment of Educational Progress

A model of the effects of economic level and ethnicity on grade 8 mathematics scores both within and between schools found that both the economic composition and the ethnic composition of a school were directly related to the effectiveness of that school. Projection of the data suggests that if the nation's schools were completely desegregated economically (but not at all ethnically), the test-score gap between free lunch students and students paying full price for lunch would decline by 25 %. Ethnic compositional effects for black, Asian/Pacific Islander (API), and Hispanic students were reversed from their within-school effects, with positive effects for students in schools with larger proportions of black and Hispanic students and a strong negative effect for students in schools with larger proportions of Asian/Pacific Islander students.     

Hispanic Self-identification and Birth Weight Outcomes among U.S.- and Foreign-born Blacks

Black infants are more likely to suffer from poor health at birth compared to non-blacks. However, most existing infant health research focuses solely on non-Hispanic blacks and fails to consider the role of ethnic self-identification on infant health disparities. Using 2002 Vital Statistics Natality Data, this paper investigates whether Hispanic ethnicity is related to birth weight among U.S.- and foreign-born black mothers. The results from regression analyses suggest that Hispanic blacks give birth to heavier infants than non-Hispanic blacks. Maternal behaviors such as prenatal care and smoking fail to explain these birth weight differences. However, the observed within-group birth weight differences among blacks are far more modest compared to the black-white birth weight disparities identified in the extant literature. Thus, while it is important to pay attention to within-group differences among blacks, it is still critical to address the needs of black Hispanics with respect to racial disparities in infant health outcomes.     

Gender Discrimination in Earnings in Indonesia: A Fuller Picture

This article analyses data from the 2007 Indonesia Family Life Survey in order to decompose the gender gap in earnings into explained and unexplained gaps, not only at the mean but also across the entire distribution. Women earned about 30% less than men, in both paid work and self-employment. The explained gap accounts for only about a quarter of the gap in paid work but for about half of the gap in self-employment. When the decomposition is made across the earnings distribution, the total gap decreases with earnings in both paid work and self-employment, and both conditional and unconditional on characteristics. In both employment sectors, the explained gap remains similar across the distribution, and therefore the unexplained gap drives the decrease in the total gap. The unconditional decomposition across the distribution provides great insight into the dynamics that are obscured in results derived from decomposition at the mean.     

Literacy Skills and Earnings: Race and Gender Differences

This study examines differences in returns to literacy skills on earnings of black and white men and women. Literacy skill is a composite measure of three scales: reading comprehension, document literacy (the ability to locate and use information in, say, tables and graphs), and mathematics proficiency. Using data from the National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS), we estimate earnings determination models separately for each racial/gender group. Our findings show that the effect of literacy on earnings varies by race and gender. Literacy skills favorably rewarded black men relative to black women and white men and women, net of education and other relevant variables. More importantly, literacy completely explained the effect of a high school diploma and some college on earnings of black men. We conclude that the economic importance of literacy skills is particularly salient for less-educated black men.     

外商直接投资与技术外溢效应——基于分位数回归法

基于分位数回归法。本文考察了外资对中国工业部门的技术外溢效应。研究结果表明：人力资本、投资环境的改善有利于FDI的技术外溢,而市场竞争、技术差距和经济开放度的提高则不利于FDI的技术外溢：人力资本和投资环境的正向影响分别在内资工业产出条件分布的高端和低端最为显著：经济开放度和技术差距的负向影响分别在条件分布的低端和高端时最为显著;而市场竞争对外溢的负向影响则在条件分布的中间位置时最显著。     

Family structure, school attendance, and child labor in the American South in 1900 and 1910

Even in the early 20th century, black children were much more likely to be living apart from one or both parents than were white children. This paper examines the contribution of these racial differences in family structure to the racial differences in children’s experiences in the American South. Living apart from one or both parents was associated with lower school attendance and greater labor market participation, particularly for blacks. However, racial differences in adult literacy, household resources, and school characteristics were much more important for explaining the racial gaps in children’s activities than were racial differences in family structure.