American Economic Review Vol. 96 No. 2 2006
Skin-Tone Effects among African Americans: Perceptions and Reality
Abstract
hourly wage, and employment status using the NSBA and the MCSUI. Lighter skin tone is clearly associated with higher employment rates for women and higher educational attainment for both women and men. The employment rate for women with very dark skin tone in the NSBA is strikingly lower than for women with lighter skin tone. In contrast, evidence that skin tone affects wages is limited. For both sexes, in both datasets, those in the light category have the highest average hourly wage, but this value is significantly different from those with darker skin only for men in the NSBA. Furthermore, the pattern for women based on the MCSUI does not show an increasing wage from darker to lighter skin tone, but instead shows that women in the medium-skin-tone category have the lowest average wage.
- DOI
- 10.1257/000282806777212071
- Volume
- 96
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 251-255
- Language
- en
- Sources
- bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref