You missed my point. It's not that women are not discriminated against, it's the blanket statement that people make that "women are paid less than men" thus they are discriminated against, which is the equivalent of what this study says about "skin tone". In some industries I definitely believe it is true, while in others I am positive it is not true. The point I am making is that just because numbers show that womens salaries are less than mens salaries in itself does not prove they are discriminated. I definitely believe that women are discriminated against in the workplace, but a broad study of salaries is not going to prove ANYTHING to me (just like this "study" doesn't).
The study in the article controls for the peculiarities inherent to certain professions or ethnic groups by sampling a wide range of them, in which they would probably tend to cancel each other out, at least intuitively taht's what I would believe - accordingly it tells us a lot more, IMO. Like I said- if you studied ONLY electircal engineering (or something with a lot of indian immigrants), you'd have the unique problem of controlling for caste bias. But if you put that data in a larger sample which includes professions other than this and groups other than this, the distortion is minimized. Not to mention that, when viewed in the context of other studies, experiments, research, and just plain old obvious everyday experience, that shows the same correlation, it's ridiculous to sit there and say you're going to ignore everything and assume that no bias exists until you find the perfect study.
Exactly, If you want to make a blanket statement about skin tone affecting earnings, then you can't take the shortcut that this study did. You would have to do studies of numerous similar occupations (with each occupation having a significant number of samples). It would take a lot more effort than what this "study" does. 8600 samples across all waks of life and occupations doesn't show me anything. And I've never said there is no bias. All I said is that you cannot use this study to point and say, see I told you so. I believe every workplace probably has some sort of bias (based on everyday experience) based on race, skin tone, height, gender, weight, accent, and many many other factors. To me, a study is worthless if its not going to give you more specific results. Sticking to your anecdotal evidence to me is even better than such a flawed study.
But they DID control for numerous similar occupations WITHIN the 8600. And it only corroborated what we already know/knew, had seen before. UGA study on african americans Ghanains associate success with light skin Psych researcher on degrees of color Skin whitening products in Asian countries Why don't we take a different tack - how about you find some research that indicates there is NO correlation between skin tone and $$$ between ethnic groups?
Read my edit above. Never did I say that there is no correlation, and I certainly don't even believe that. All I am saying is that there is more to it than just that and this study is nothing more than someone saying they believe that "skin tone affects earnings" with no evidence at all. Yes I believe in many industries and places it definitely can have an affect, but I would never point to this study to prove my point. While I believe there are things that have affects, my opinion that it is often combinations of many of these other influences that combine to have a greater affect. Making blanket statements don't do justice in my opinion. I do believe as I stated before that for the most part, regular every day jobs, these factors do not have huge impacts. While for management and "higher and mightier" jobs, these factors all play big roles due to biased and societal perceptions (ie. the preception that a man does not want to be led by a woman, the perception that taller people are better leaders, etc).
Many Indian engineers make less money than their white colleagues not because of their darker skin color but because of their H1B visa. The boss knows they have no bargaining power if they are on H1B. Has this study considered this H1B effect?
That is illegal, and I don't think it's true. Sure there may be people who break that rule, but the immigration law explicitly requires employers to pay H-1B employees the same wages that they pay domestic workers. The H-1B employee could sue the company if they didn't. I work in a very large engineering firm and I can tell you that doesn't happen here at all.
Sam, this comment indicates that you still do not get the point. The point is that it is impossible to isolate the skin color variable. It's impossible. Had you picked up on this earlier, you would not have posted such an irrelevant and misguided question. And btw -- accusing posters of having a bias is not a valid way of arguing about the study. It's your typical escape hatch when all else fails, but it is nonetheless disingenuous.
While I have no doubt about the affect of skin tone on earnings (and height, weight, and looks while we are at it), the author totally lost her credibility here. Has she never been in another country? Try telling Mexicans there is no discrimination in their country based on skin tone (I'll take the Spanish versus the Aztecs for $100, Alex). Laughable.
Do you have any support that it does not make an impact for "regular every day jobs"? My intuition is that it makes MORE difference for regular every day jobs... ...because the applicant search for such jobs is going to necessarily be less intensive and less focused on factors such as education, etc.... as they would be for "higher and mightier" jobs, leaving MORE room for bias to play a factor - and more room for the inherent prejudices noted in the various psych studies (which span across race, ethnicity, and geography) to come into play. The way I interpret that statement is that she tried to control for ethnic biases like that that might skew the results, though I may be wrong.
She didn't say it doesn't occur elsewhere. She isn't saying that skin tone doesn't come into play in other countries. It might. However the Spanish vs. the Aztecs deals with two different ethnicities, and not skin tones within the same ethnicity.
I used to be a H1B holder and worked for a big company in Houston. I felt I was treated fairly and are not discriminated in any way. However, several of my friends worked for small companies didn't get much salary raise for years but they dared not to bargain with the boss because of their visa status. After they got the green cards, they started bargaining. All of them got a big salary hike, either staying with the company or switching to another company.
I had friends in college who went to firms where that was their M.O. They paid wages well below market to all the engineers who did detailed engineering. They tended to only get applications from people who were desperate. The largest group was Chinese and Indian students on student visas who needed a sponsor for permanent resident status.
Well then we have a disagreement as to where and how this affects different jobs because studies are not detailed enough to do that. We can only go with our intuition as both of us believe different things, and I can't use this study to change my mind based on reasons stated. My thinking is that entry level jobs (regardless of industry) are more accessible to everyone because that is where the real push is to be diverse from many companies. I've done interviews before and we were trained to push for candidates that would improve diversity so I believe these jobs are more attainable for everyone based on their educational merits. The "higher and mightier" jobs that I am talking about are the upper managment and executive positions where it requires more than just credentials to get them. These jobs generally require "knowing someone" as there are many qualified candidates. This is where I believe most of these discriminations come in whether it be race, gender, age, height, or whatever. Kind of like the NFL. There are alot of minorities working there, but how many get to the head coaching/general manager levels. Would there be even a fraction of what there is if there wasn't so much attention focused on it? Well in other industries there is not as much attention, and I believe they get away with a lot more at that level. Just my opinion, but i could see how you have a different one.
It might? Really? Also, most people don't wear signs indicating their ethnicity, but judgments are made on appearances. I'll trust that you are not taking the position that this form of bias is somehow a uniquely US phenomenon, or that it is more prevalent here than in other countries, and that our disagreement is over semantics.
I think they may be looking at the wrong things in this study. I think earning is based more on culture and country. Where are the immigrants coming from. Generally darker skin immigrants come from tropical regions and Latin America and don't have educations because of the economic conditions and culture. The educated population in these countries tend to stay in their homeland since they have plenty of opportunities. Contrast that with lighter skin immigrants. Most of them come from Europe, Canada and Asia where the education levels are higher and the economic conditions are better and more competitive. These immigrants tend to be higher educated or have higher business acumen because of the enviroment they come from.
That's why the study measured for discrimination WITHIN ethnic groups and CONTROLLED for these factors.
I was reading about this study in the Vanderbilt student paper the other day. I think it shows some important things. Yes, I am a recent econ grad from Vandy so I have to defend the ability of professors to do quality research. I'm sure there are very smart people on this board with valid ideas, but this isn't some random person doing their first study, etc. that isn't aware of how to conduct research. I'm sure she knows all about controlling for certain things, etc. She has done a large amount of research so this isn't her first time to do research. Actually, she came to Vanderbilt, along with W. Kip Viscusi (who is also highly regarded) from Harvard to start Vanderbilt’s Ph.D. Program in Law and Economics. I've seen attempts to discredit the work in this thread by saying she should do something, when actually it appears that she IS doing what you suggest.
Oh and yes not every study is a good one, I'm sure some highly educated people produce some bad research as well. I'm just saying that much of the stuff brought up in this thread isn't anything more than basic research suggestions about controls, etc. that I think she is quite experienced enough to know all about those type items. If you read the first article, she actually does control for multiple things.
Finally, I respect the opinions of people on this board and concerns raised about this and other topics, there have been good things brought up in this thread I just think many of them already were taken into account. It is hard to get too critical of a study off of a news story because we haven't seen the fully study so don't know exactly what was always done.
