Socioeconomic Gains of Asian Americans, Blacks, and Hispanics: 1960-1976

Abstract

Based on the Census of the Population for 1960 and 1970 and the Survey of Income and Education in 1976, this study analyzes socioeconomic inequality between five minority populations (blacks, Hispanics, Japanese, Chinese, and Filipinos) and the majority population (white non-Hispanics) and the decomposes ethnic "gaps" into shares that are "explained" by age, nativity, residence, education, and other social background attributes. In general, Asian Americans approach socioeconomic parity with whites because of their overachievement in educational attainment. Over the past decade, there has been a marked decline in the direct negative effect of ethnicity on earnings (except among Chinese Americans). This suggests that the old-fashioned "open" discrimination by employers may be on the wane, but the remaining ethnic inequality, rooted in differential access to institutional settings, may be more persistent.