By John | Tuesday, February 26, 2008
In “On Diversity, America Isn’t Putting Its Money Where Its Mouth Is,” The Wall Street Journal reports:
“More than 40 years after job discrimination was outlawed, the wage gap between white men and just about everyone else persists. The one exception is for Asian-American men, whose median wages were just 1% less than those of white men who worked full time, year round, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ survey in 2005, the latest year for which data are available. Black men, by contrast, earned 74% of the wages of white males; Hispanic men earned 58%. Women, overall, are substantially lagging behind men in pay. Full-time female employees earned 77% of all men’s median wages. Breaking it down in terms of race, Asian-American women earned 78% of the median annual pay of white men; white women earned 73%; black women, 63%; and Hispanic women, 52%.”
As an Asian-American man or woman, do you feel that you are being paid for what you are worth, relative to your white counterparts? It’s pretty interesting to see that Asian-Americans are the least “wage-discriminated” against according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ figures. As the article goes on to describe, there are many factors that affect wages, including education and experience.
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THE_BANANA_REPUBLIC wrote:
If white males are the standard, then us asian males are doing relatively well. I think the reason behind why there is that 1% gap is because of a lack of assertive personality that isn’t recognized in some jobs for promotion.
As far as women, so long as they are the baby-bearers, their median wages will always be lower. They have to take time off during late pregnancy and early childhood. Some jobs require these women to be present in order for them to receive pay.
Posted on 26-Feb-08 at 5:58 am | Permalink
nonono wrote:
1% doesn’t sound bad, but check out the breakout by education. (2207 census)
54% of asian american males over 25 have bachelors degrees and 24% have a higher degree.
For white males, these numbers are 30% and 11% respectively.
This means that despite having a population which has more than twice the % of advanced degrees and almost double the % of college degrees, asian american males somehow make 1% less than their white male counterparts.
Posted on 26-Feb-08 at 6:40 am | Permalink
Tien wrote:
These are ridiculously misleading numbers which are trying to suggest that your wage/salary is somehow dependent on your race/gender rather than your actual profession and role that you play.
The numbers provided are averages for salaries across all professions, and it’s undeniable that most CEOs, executives, are mostly white males, while engineers, doctors, lawyers, etc. are made up of mostly white/Asian males–professions which make the most money and skew the averages toward their favor.
If you compare two people of different races/genders doing the same job, with the same education/experiences, there will be a miniscule difference in their earnings. It doesn’t matter if you’re a teacher, janitor, or lawyer, your wages will not be determined by who you are.
You can of course make the argument that a white male lawyer may have a better chance of being promoted than a female Asian lawyer and thus end up in a higher income bracket or something along those lines, but it’s be silly to think that w/ two people doing the same job that one will get paid more than the other because of who they are–which is what these statistics are trying to present themselves.
If anything, corporations are going to do their best to make sure that there’s equal pay between different races/genders to avoid even the possibility of a suggestion that there’s discrimination involved in hopes of bringing a lawsuit aboard.
It would be a story if you were to compare any two doctors, park rangers, or investment bankers with similar roles/hierarchies of different races and found a discrepancy–however this is certainly not the case here in 2008.
Posted on 26-Feb-08 at 9:05 am | Permalink
Grace Chu wrote:
Anyone notice this?
“Asian-American women earned 78% of the median annual pay of white men”
“white women earned 73% [of the median annual pay of white men]”
So, Asian-American women, according to that study, on average, OUT-EARN WHITE WOMEN by approximately 7%.
(I’d also like to apologize for bringing down the average. I do have a professional degree, but the media industry doesn’t pay all that much.)
Posted on 26-Feb-08 at 9:55 am | Permalink
anonymous wrote:
Tien,
You might wanna check the article again, its going by Median, not Mean.
Posted on 26-Feb-08 at 10:03 am | Permalink
Bo wrote:
Tien makes several good points. The study is comparing the proverbial apples to oranges. More accurate comparisons would be derived if they compared groups that have the same educational background and are in the same roles. That being said, the real issues lie not in what the medians are in totality but the the social/cultural forces that limit women and minorities from higher earning roles. Whether it is microinequities that keep individuals from being promoted to managerial roles or limited access to educational opportunities that would prepare minorities for higher paying jobs - the focus shouldn’t be the inequities in pay but the larger inequities in access to opportunities. The pay gap is a consequence of larger social forces.
Posted on 27-Feb-08 at 8:12 am | Permalink