Race,
earnings and intelligence: The
Race, earnings and
intelligence: The Bell Curve; Authors don't admit. bias
is another reason for the racial earnings gap
The publication of The Bell Curve by Charles Murray and Richard Hernstein, besides igniting the question of racial inferiority, sparks renewed interest in another old question: Why is there an enduring black-white earnings gap?
In 1991, the average black
male college graduate earned $31,000; his white counterpart earned $40,000.
This gap hasn't narrowed much since 1975.
There is an economics
theory that explains individual wage and salary income differences. It says a
worker's productivity determines his or her pay. If economics were a lab
science, we'd test this by observing a worker group, measuring individual
productivity and comparing earnings. But in the modern workplace, output
depends upon the abilities and efforts of all the workers, making it difficult
to measure individual productivity.
Economists can gauge
productivity indirectly by studying individual characteristics that predict
productivity. They believe education, for example, increases productivity. If
we compare two individuals in the same occupation and industry with the same
work experience, marital status and number of children, we'd expect the one
with more schooling to produce and, therefore, earn more. Most studies find
that schooling and work experience explain only part of this gap. So, what are
other possible explanations?
A theory popular among
conservatives is that education and work experience are not effective measures
of productivity. There must be other forces we can't observe that are either
incidentally or causally linked to race. Murray and Hernstein suggest that this
is intelligence. The authors argue that IQ scores are racelinked because
intelligence is hereditary. Therefore, blacks earn less than whites because
they are less intelligent.
Their analysis is flawed.
(For starters, "race" is more a social construct than a biological
one.) Economists ask: Do IQ scores measure intelligence, other
productivity-related characteristics or something else? Murray and Hernstein
claim a consensus exists that IQ tests do measure intelligence, but many
psychologists and biologists disagree.
The Bell Curve authors also
don't acknowledge another explanation for the racial earnings gap:
discrimination. Employment tester studies, like one conducted by the Urban
Institute, show that (white) employers prefer hiring whites even when blacks
present equivalent credentials. If we can eliminate
employment bias, the race earnings gap will disappear. But The Bell Curve is
another attempt to obscure this fact.
Cecilia A. Conrad, a member
of the B.E. Board of Economists, is a professor of economics at
Cecilia
A. Conrad, Race, earnings and
intelligence: The
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