Racial discrimination in the U.S. labor market: Employment and wage differentials by skill

Daniel Borowczyk-Martins, Jake Bradley and Linas Tarasonis

Labour Economics, 2017, vol. 49, issue C, 106-127

Abstract: In the U.S. the average black worker has a lower employment rate and earns a lower wage compared to his white counterpart. Lang and Lehmann (2012) argue that black–white wage and employment gaps are smaller for high-skill workers. We show that a model combining employer taste-based discrimination, search frictions and skill complementarities can replicate these regularities, and estimate it using data from the U.S. manufacturing sector. We find that discrimination is quantitatively important to understand differences in wages and job finding rates across workers with low education levels, whereas skill differences are the main driver of those differences among workers with high education levels.

Keywords: Employment and wage gaps; Discrimination; Job search; Sorting (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J31 J64 J71 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Racial discrimination in the U.S. labor market: Employment and wage differentials by skill (2018)
Working Paper: Racial Discrimination in the U.S. Labor Market: Employment and Wage Differentials by Skill (2014)
Working Paper: Racial Discrimination in the U.S. Labor Market: Employment and Wage Differentials by Skill (2014)
Working Paper: Racial Discrimination in the U.S. Labor Market: Employment and Wage Differentials by Skill (2014)
Working Paper: Racial Discrimination in the U.S. Labor Market: Employment and Wage Differentials by Skill (2014)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:labeco:v:49:y:2017:i:c:p:106-127

DOI: 10.1016/j.labeco.2017.09.007

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