RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 The Differing Nature of Black-White Wage Inequality Across Occupational Sectors
JF Journal of Human Resources
JO J Hum Resour
FD University of Wisconsin Press
SP 398
OP 434
DO 10.3368/jhr.XLII.2.398
VO XLII
IS 2
A1 David Bjerk
YR 2007
UL http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/XLII/2/398.abstract
AB The nature of racial wage inequality appears to differ across occupation sectors. Specifically, I find that all of the racial wage inequality in the white-collar job sector can be accounted for by controlling for the academic skill level of each worker, but almost half of the overall racial wage inequality remains in the blue-collar sector after controlling for each worker’s academic skill. Relatedly, after controlling for academic skill, I find that black workers are actually more likely to work in the white-collar sector than white workers. I show that these findings are consistent, and arguably directly implied by, both preference-based and statistical-based models of discrimination. However, omitted variable bias and measurement error also cannot be ruled out as possible explanations.