Question

2. Chinese- and Japanese-Americans have average earnings which are equal to, or above, those of white Americans. Does this fact imply that these ethnic groups do not suffer (on the whole) from labor market discrimination?

Answer 1

Asian Americans are the fastest growing minority group, and their population size now exceeds 20 million They are an interesting case in the study of racial/ethnic inequality because they are the only major racial/ethnic group for whom educational attainment exceeds whites on average Given the increasing social significance of education as well as its rising economic returns the comparison of Asian Americans versus whites is informative in suggesting whether class advantage can sometimes ameliorate labor market discrimination and the disadvantage of racial/ethnic minority status

Native-born workers to reduce unobserved population heterogeneity, which can be an important issue when assessing discrimination in labor market outcomes An example of the significance of population heterogeneity is evident in the analysis of the effects of education in the older literature education served as a sort of suppressor effect on the bivariate association between minority status and wages for Asian American men. claimed that the average earnings of Asian Americans did not differ very much from those of whites due to Asian American “educational overachievement.” The labor market could then be construed to be discriminating against Asian Americans in that they must make a higher investment in human capital to obtain the same earnings as whites

In addition to place of education, Asian immigrants may be disadvantaged in other ways. Immigrants face reduced labor market opportunities when they lack fluent English-language skills Immigrants are usually less familiar with American labor market practices and institutions, which may be further obfuscated by cultural differences and limited social networks Acculturation may sometimes be more arduous for Asian immigrants (e.g., compared to whites from Canada or the UK) given the different collectivist cultural values that are common in many Asian societies but are at odds with the heightened individualism of the United States

Another aspect of unobserved heterogeneity (or omitted variable bias) in the measurement of educational attainment is field of study in college. As more workers have obtained a college degree in recent decades, horizontal aspects of educational attainment may be becoming more significant For example, degrees in science, technology, engineering, and math (i.e., STEM) have substantially higher economic returns on average than education degrees or liberals arts majors such as history or English Asian Americans are heavily overrepresented in STEM fields of study in comparison to whites