Why so only 5.5% of Black Men Marry White Women?*

Only 5.5% of black males married white females in 1990, and the family‐income premium for intermarried black males was 7%. This article estimates the impact of the mating taboo, courting opportunities, and individual endowments on the black male marriage market. Results indicate that eliminating the mating taboo would raise the intermarriage rate from 5.5 to 64%, and do away with the intermarriage premium. Improving black males' endowments or allowing black males to meet white females as frequently as they do black females would not increase intermarriage.     

GENDER EARNINGS DIFFERENTIALS AND REGIONAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN URBAN CHINA, 1988–97

Gender earnings differentials in urban China by region and their changes during the first decade of economic reform are examined. It is found that the female–male earnings ratio increased during the early stage of reform. The male earnings premium, overall, showed an increasing trend in the later stage of reform. Decomposition of the gender earnings differential reveals that a relatively lower percentage of the differential could be explained by gender differences in productive characteristics in the fast growing regions and in regions with a rapid pace of reform. The cross-sectional results highlight the possible existence of gender discrimination, particularly in the later stages of economic reform and development. Both market competition and the effects of wage decentralization play a role in shaping the gender earnings differentials. Gender earnings differentials varied by region and over time, generally in tandem with the pace of economic reform and development. The decomposition of the over time changes in the earnings gap indicated that improvement in the productive characteristics of females during the reform period constantly enhanced the earnings of females relative to those of males. The changes over time in the return to female characteristics, however, work to counter any narrowing of the gender earnings gap.     

Wage differentials by sector and gender: a quantile analysis for the Spanish case

This paper analyses existing wage differentials between workers in the public and private sectors and by gender in Spain. This analysis is run throughout the entire earnings distribution and observed wage differentials are decomposed into a part explained by differences in productive characteristics and a part due to differences in returns to such characteristics. Our results show that public sector workers tend to earn higher wages than private employees, although most of this sector wage gap is due to better public workers’ productive characteristics. A wage premium in favour of men is also found in both the public and private sectors, with the gender wage gap greater at the top of the earnings distribution.     

Male and Female Recoveries in Medical Malpractice Cases

This study analyzes male and female recovery resulting from medical malpractice injuries to discern the importance to the recovery differential of gender differences in recoveries for medical malpractice injuries. We find that the pattern of recoveries follows one similar to that found in studying wage differentials between males and females. Differences in the relative magnitudes of foregone earnings and nonmarket loses are reflected in the composition of recoveries. In addition, we find a recovery gap in which females receive substantially less in recoveries when they receive male's average compensation for medical malpractice injuries. However, only a small portion of the male and female recovery differential is explained by the characteristics of the claims, leaving a substantial portion of the differential unexplained.     

Levels of computer self-efficacy, computer use and earnings in China

Levels of self-efficacy in computer use were found to be positively related to computer use at work among a sample of workers in Shanghai. The simultaneous estimation of computer use and earnings indicated that an earnings premium for computer use accrues only to females, not to males.     

Gender wage differentials and discrimination in the New South Africa

Research into discrimination within South Africa (SA) has focused on racial issues, with gender issues being largely ignored. This study aims to estimate gender wage differentials and through decomposition analysis understand the different problems faced by white, black, coloured and Indian/Asian in 1995. It is found that white and Asian females suffer greater gender discrimination than their black and coloured counterparts, which could be a signal to future problems black and coloured females may encounter. The largest gender wage differential is faced by white females, whilst the lowest is encountered by coloured and black females. A possible explanation for this finding is the low (subsistence) wages that the black and coloured population groups command relative to other population groups.     

Ability Matters: Effects of Youth Labor‐Market Opportunities on Long‐Term Labor‐Market Outcomes

Utilizing registry data from cognitive ability tests for all Norwegian males born between 1962 and 1973, I study whether labor‐market conditions at the age of graduation have differential effects on earnings and employment for different ability groups. I find that low‐ability males are more vulnerable to local business cycles at the expected time of labor‐market entry. In particular, I demonstrate that low‐ability males suffer larger long‐term earnings losses than the rest of the population.     

Women,Ecology and Economics,edited by Ellie Perkins

This paper finds that black women earn 7 percent less than similarly skilled white women because of their race. Even within the same occupational category, black women earn 3 percent less than similarly qualified white women. Black women receive lower pay primarily due to occupational segregation and because they are rewarded with lower earnings than white women for equivalent levels of education and other human capital characteristics.     

Earnings differentials and household-income differentials in Hungary—Policies and practice

Since about 1970 it has been the policy of the Hungarian leaders to widen earnings differentials for incentive reasons and, simultaneously, to narrow household-income differentials for equity reasons. The two policies work in opposite direction.This paper analyzes the policies and their actual results. Hungary has managed indeed to considerably narrow income differentials due to rapid expansion of transfer payments. The introduction of the NEM in 1968 was marked by a widening of earnings differentials in order to increase economic efficiency. However, since 1973 an opposite development has taken hold for political reasons and is still going forward.     

The English Language Fluency And Earnings Of Ethnic Minorities In Britain

This study addresses two issues. First it estimates how much of the male and female ethnic earnings gap is the result of an advantage in the English language and whether there is an earnings penalty to non–whites, over and above this. Lack of fluency is shown to have a highly significant impact on the earnings of ethnic minorities in Britain, although the language penalty is much greater for women than it is for men. Moreover, only foreign born non–white males that have arrived in Britain between 1970 and 1994, exhibit lower earnings once language fluency is taken into consideration, whilst British born females exhibit higher earnings. So the evidence here suggests that non–white earnings are assimilating towards those of whites and that lower female non–white earnings are a direct result of a lack of fluency rather than ethnicity. Secondly, the study will try to measure any endogenous bias associated with the non–fluency earnings penalty. Controlling for the endogeneity between language fluency and earnings is shown to be problematic. Estimates suggest that single equation earnings functions slightly underestimate the true language fluency penalty for males, and slightly overestimate the fluency penalty for females. Finally, education and fluency are not surprisingly shown to be complementary.     

Why is There a Graduate Earnings Premium for Students From Independent Schools?

We examine the determinants of occupational earnings of UK 1993 graduates and focus on the influence of the type of school the graduate attended prior to university entrance. For data reasons, we restrict attention to graduates who attended school in England. We estimate that, on average, a male (female) graduate who attended an Independent school receives an earnings premium of 3.1 per cent (3.4 per cent) over and above the earnings of a graduate who attended an LEA school, ceteris paribus . We also find considerable variation across different Independent schools in the size of the graduate earnings premium, especially for males, and show that in the case of males the premium increases with the level of school fees, but is not statistically related to measures of school–level average academic performance.     

Risk aversion and the earnings of US immigrants and natives

The literature on the earnings of natives and immigrants has heretofore ignored differences in compensating wages for job risks. It is possible that the risk involved in migration may indicate a greater willingness on the part of immigrants to accept riskier jobs than natives. Alternatively, immigrants may attempt to protect their migration investment by choosing occupations with less risk, indicating a higher degree of risk aversion. This paper examines differences in risk aversion between US immigrants and natives, and corresponding differentials in wage premiums for job risk. Our analysis suggests that on average immigrants are exposed to 21% less risk than natives, but receive a 25% higher risk premium. The higher degree of risk aversion of immigrants and their lower exposure to risk, and thus lower earnings, explains 5% of the higher observed earnings of natives. We also find that earlier immigrant cohorts (pre-1970) are employed in riskier jobs than are recent cohorts, but the difference accounts for only a small portion of the observed earnings differential. Finally, we estimate statistical values of life of $3.6 million for US natives and $4.6 million for immigrants, well within the range of previous studies.     

Does union membership reduce gender earnings differentials? Evidence from employer–employee matched data in China

This paper examines whether union membership reduces gender earnings differentials in the Chinese labour market using an employer–employee matched data set. We have three main findings. First, union membership helps reduce the gender differentials in hourly wage and monthly allowance, but not in monthly basic wage and yearly bonus. Second, ensuring that female workers receive overtime pay is one way by which union membership helps reduce the gender earnings differentials. Third, controlling for firm fixed effects reduces the effect of union membership on the gender gap in hourly wage and monthly allowance, which means that the unobserved firm characteristics might impact the effect of union membership on gender earnings differentials.     

Gender wage differentials and discrimination in Korea: comparison by knowledge intensity of industries

This study estimates the relative size of the non-productivity-related gender wage gap across industries with differing knowledge intensities. More specifically, a gender wage premium was estimated from a modified Mincerian earnings equation, and an Oaxaca's discrimination coefficient was computed. Empirical evidence indicates that gender wage differentials tend to be less subject to potential discrimination in knowledge-based industries than in other industries with lower knowledge intensity. The estimated discrimination effect is least noticeable in top hierarchical occupations such as professionals and technicians, while it is most sizeable in production workers and sales/service workers, regardless of industrial affiliation.     

The Russian–Ukrainian earnings divide1

Ethnic differences are often considered to be powerful sources of diverse economic behaviour. In this article, we investigate to what extent ethnicity affects Ukrainian labour market outcomes. Using microdata from the Ukrainian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey and the Oaxaca–Blinder decomposition of earnings, we find a persistent and increasing labour market divide between ethnic Russians and Ukrainians throughout Ukraine’s transition era. We establish that language, rather than nationality, is the key factor behind this ethnic premium favouring Russians. Our findings further document that this premium is larger amongst males than females.     

Psychological Traits and Earnings Differentials among Men: A Study of Second‐generation Immigrants in Sweden*

The purpose of this study is to analyse the impact of psychological traits on earnings differentials between second‐generation immigrants and individuals with native‐born parents. The study is based on a cohort of men born in 1973 and residing in Sweden in 1990. In this paper, we use an indicator of psychological ability measured in connection with the military enlistment test in Sweden. The results show that the measure of psychological traits is an important determinant of earnings at the age of 30. Using an Oaxaca–Blinder decomposition, we find that earnings differentials between second‐generation immigrants and individuals with native‐born parents are explained, to a large degree, by differences in endowments of psychological traits.     

SCHOOLING AND OCCUPATIONAL EARNINGS*

This paper investigates the relation between schooling and earnings across and within occupations. Across occupations earnings are positively related to mean education. Within occupations the variance in schooling levels is generally substantial, but within two thirds of the occupations no relation between schooling and earnings is observed, while in the remaining third the pattern of sensitivity varies considerably. The sensitivity of earnings to education is greater for white males than white females and substantially greater for whites than blacks. When the white sample is divided into age cohorts, the degree of sensitivity of earnings to schooling is found to be greater for younger cohorts than older ones, except for the youngest cohort in 1970. In the conclusion, a structural interpretation of the distribution of earnings is proposed to account for the findings.     

GENDER EARNINGS DIFFERENCES IN CHINA: BASE PAY,PERFORMANCE PAY,AND TOTAL PAY

We utilize a data set that has not been used in literature—the Life Histories and Social Change in Contemporary China (LHSCCC)—to provide new evidence on male‐female pay differences in China. The data set not only enables us to control for a wide range of pay‐determining characteristics but also is the first to enable an analysis of the different components of pay (e.g., base pay and performance pay) as well as for total pay. We find: (1) Women receive about three‐quarters of male pay for each of the dimensions of base pay, performance pay, and total pay, before adjusting for the effect of different pay‐determining factors; (2) Approximately two‐thirds of the gap reflect the fact that females tend to be paid less than males for the same wage‐determining characteristics (often labeled as discrimination), while about one‐third reflects the fact that males have endowments or characteristics that tend to be associated with higher pay, especially supervisory responsibilities, general labor market experience, occupational skills, education, and membership in the Communist party; (3) Marriage has a large positive effect on the earnings of women in China (and none for men), but childcare responsibilities for children under the age of 6 have a large negative effect on the earnings of women although these are offset almost completely if an elder family member is present, highlighting that childcare responsibilities disproportionately fall on women unless an elder family member is present; (4) Pay premiums for higher level skills and higher supervisory ranks are remarkably small for both males and especially females; (5) With respect to the unexplained or “discriminatory” portion of the gap, females get a huge pay penalty for simply being female, but a substantial portion of this gets offset by the higher pay premium they receive for such factors as Han ethnicity, being married, and education. This suggests that discrimination tends to occur in the form of a pay penalty for simply being female and not from lower returns to the same endowments of pay‐determining characteristics. (JEL J3, J7, M5)     

Is utility additive? The case of alcohol

By using the quantile regressions of earnings equation, we find that the educational wage premium is higher in industries with rapid technological change than in industries with slower technological change at every decile in the distribution of wage residuals. The wage premium associated with the technological change is mostly explained by the returns to workers' unobserved heterogeneities, which are correlated with education, rather than the rents of high-tech industries.     

Sex Differentials in Earnings in the South Korean Labor Market

We examine gender differences in earnings among South Korean workers in 1988 – the year the South Korean National Assembly enacted the Equal Employment Opportunity Act. Using the "88 Occupational Wage Bargaining Survey on the Actual Condition," we calculate women's mean earnings as a percentage of men's mean earnings by major industrial category and educational attainment. We find a larger wage gap among clerical and sales workers than production workers or professionals. Generally, the more education a woman has, the smaller the gap between her earnings and those of her male counterparts. Women with a middle-school education have a mean income 53.5 percent that of comparable men, while the female-to-male wage ratio among college graduates is 76.1 percent. We analyze wage differences separately for women and men. Following Ronald Oaxaca's (1973) work, we decompose male–female wage differentials. We also calculate a discrimination coefficient. Our work shows that, all else equal, men earn from 33.6 percent to 46.9 percent more than women with comparable skills. We attribute the difference to gender discrimination.