Labor Market Discrimination and Racial Differences in Premarket Factors*

By Pedro Carneiro, James J. Heckman, Dimitriy V. Masterov. Journal law and economy, 2005

297 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This paper investigates the relative significance of differences in cognitive skills and discrimination in explaining racial/ethnic wage gaps. We show that cognitive test scores for exams taken prior to entering the labor market are influenced by schooling. Adjusting the scores for racial/ethnic differences in education at the time the test is taken reduces their role in accounting for the wage gaps. We also consider evidence on parental and child expectations about education and on stereotype threat effects. We find both factors to be implausible alternative explanations for the gaps we observe. We argue that policies need to address the sources of early skill gaps and to seek to influence the more malleable behavioral abilities in addition to their cognitive counterparts. Such policies are far more likely to be effective in promoting racial and ethnic equality for most groups than are additional civil rights and affirmative action policies targeted at the workplace.

Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, Education, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a4d1062252beaac5ac11d88d7ef39ba3ed2195e8

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Citations in the corpus

The Effects of Cognitive and Noncognitive Abilities on Labor Market Outcomes and Social Behavior (2006, unknown): “Least squares estimates likely overstate the contribution of ability to wages and understate the contribution of schooling to wages (see Carneiro, Heckman, and Masterov 2005).”
Educational institutions and the integration of migrants (2011, background): “Pre-primary education Carneiro et al. (2005) have studied labor market discrimination of ethnic minorities in the USA and argue that deficits in cognitive skills of minorities emerge early and widen with schooling.”
No more failures : ten steps to equity in education (2007, unknown): “In many OECD countries, immigrants are more at risk of unemployment and are more often in low-skilled and lowpaid positions (Carneiro et al., 2005; Garner-Moyer (n.d.); ILO, 2005; OECD, 2005e; OECD, 2006i).”
Maternal Education, Home Environments and the Development of Children and Adolescents (2007, methodology): “2 For example, Jencks and Phillips (1998), Cameron and Heckman (2001), Fryer and Levitt (2004, 2006, 2007), Carneiro, Heckman, and Masterov (2005) , Todd and Wolpin (2006) and many others show how dierences in family environments account for a large proportion of the black-white test score gap.”
Racial Discrimination in the Labor Market: Theory and Empirics (2012, unknown): “In particular, controlling for additional predictors of wages can increase the esti‑ mated wage differential.3 Rodgers and Spriggs (1996) and Carneiro, Heckman, and Masterov (2005) find that adjustments for years of schooling at the time the respon‑ dents took the AFQT lead to the reemer‑ gence of…”