Re: #99 referring to #97
Probably help, but the fact that such help was believed to be needed to cancel negative racial stereotypes is probably the point of the story.
@Rivet2000 I can answer that, it was to ease the fears of the white clientele. My husband is questioned constantly about his authority. I wish I could get into more detail about what he does,but it suffices to say he had been in meetings openly questioned about his ability. His name is also fairly generic, think “ bob smith”, so it is always assumed he is white.
On a related topic I saw a blog post from a recruiter and who said that minority candidates many times don’t counter their offers, or if they do it is for very little.
“I’ll never forget the speech given by a retired NY tax partner at a Big 4 acctg firm who is black. He told us that when he was a first year associate meeting with clients for the first time his more senior colleagues would always introduce him as “this is xxxxxx he is a graduate of Harvard” like they had to legitimize his credentials to sit at the table with these clients. He went on to say that white associate’s colleges were never mentioned in the introductions. Even at the highest levels of professional services firms subtle (and not so subtle) biases and racism exist.”
I started my career in the Big 4 (it was the Big 6 then) and worked up the ranks through manager level. Discrimination was not just an issue for minorities, it was an issue for women as well. Even though when I started they’d been hiring at least 50% women for years, in the entire metro area there was only one female partner at all the Big 6 firms. Over time, there have been more of course but female partners still don’t come close to being 50% of the partners even though more than 50% of associates hired are women.
And yes, even when I was leading a team, I was still asked to take notes in meetings, clients would assume one of the guys working for me was the boss and that I would be making the copies. And that was after a partner would introduce me as X manager who graduated from Y.
Even now, I own an electronics manufacturing company and the way the bank treats me is completely different than the way my husband (6’ tall white guy with an English accent) is treated. Frustrating.
Over time, different treatment does wear on people. It is exhausting.
@Rivet2000, the intro - describing someone as being a Harvard grad - was definitely meant to help, to legitimize. The finance industry can be really snooty not just about certain degrees but also about unqualified people being hired under diversity initiatives. Stating that this person is a Harvard grad was meant to be helpful and show the guy knew what he was doing, wasn’t just hired to meet a quota.
My first boss used to introduce me as a female engineer, until I told him enough times if was an in-person introduction he didn’t have to tell them I was female. The same happens with female doctors and male nurses in hospital environments. People make assumptions, it’s hard to change mindsets and expectations.
I’m a glass half full type, so it’s good to see people trying to help associates.
Parents and schools need to help educate their kids on negotiating and countering offers. I had a proud moment a few months ago when my son countered a summer internship offer on the east coast. He made a fact based argument on why their offer was not sufficient to relocate and live. When they did not budge he politely declined. A good start.
Yes, I know what you mean about income, @partyof5. This study is kind of open ended to me when they just talk about what income percentiles people are in, as that is just part of the story. There’s a big gap being in the top of that top 25% of income and the bottom of it, and I don’t see that they differentiate. Like you say, one can have a good income but not feel like they have enough in the bank. It would have been helpful to have a more complete picture, as if you don’t have anything extra (whether your income is considered high or not), that makes a big difference. And a high income in NYC or SF might just provide the basics.
After 34 years of flying, I still sometimes feel like I have to provide my background, lest someone think I was a minority hire. It’s interesting the way people ask…sometimes it’s appropriate, in conversation, and sometimes it seems a little weird. I try not to be hypersensitive to it, but as soon as I say that I’m prior military, I feel like I get a positive reaction, that maybe I wasn’t a minority hire after all. Seems unfair to the civilian background ladies and minorities, as most of them are extremely well qualified.
And that’s the huge downside to affirmative action and diversity initiatives… they create the perception that a person may be in a position because of skin color or gender rather than skill. Frustrating and insulting for the qualified people in those roles.
There’s a lot of data in the paper, and if you read carefully you may find exactly what you want. I call your attention, for example, to page 104 of the study, where they compare black and white males with families from exactly the 75th percentile of income, from the same census tract. The graph shows that the white males end up as adults, on average, 9.2 percentile points higher than the black males in income.
So, 39% of white boys in rich families become rich adults, compared to only 17% of black boys, which is a 229% higher rate. I suspect that difference would shrink very significantly if, as a society, we took serious steps to close the over 5 point difference between white and black ACT test takers.
I am under no illusion that this is the only problem, but it is an actionable place to start and very little is being done to address it. Big first steps could be extending the k-12 school year by a month, increasing the emphasis on English and math, and increasing the level of contact, dialogue, and exchange of information between schools and parents.
Unfortunately, both political parties do little or nothing to address this.
^So this issue would be completely solved if black students just did better on the ACT?
GDP growth is irrelevant to the mobility metrics discussed in the Nytimes article. By definition, no more than 20% can be in the top quintile.
What’s really interesting is the slide where it plots child income percentile vs parent income percentile by race. Asians do better than whites until you reach about the top quintile for parental income. Poor Asians tend to do better than poor whites. The effect seems mostly due to immigrants, so why do the children of even poor Asian immigrants do so well?
@roethlisburger Sorry I don’t subscribe to that definition.
@sciencenerd “So this issue would be completely solved if black students just did better on the ACT?”
- The gap in ACT scores represents a gap in the education being received. That gap needs to be closed.
- I said, "I am under no illusion that this is the only problem."
- The gap in outcomes will persist at least as long as the gap in education persists. Better educational outcomes will improve career opportunities.
- Steps will still need to be taken to ensure equal opportunity.
Do you disagree?
Actually, the effect is entirely explained by the children of immigrants. The authors write that if when you look at Asian-Americans, you exclude first generation Asian-Americans, then the Asian trajectory is similar to the white trajectory. I speculate (and this is speculation only) that in this birth cohort, a lot of the poor Asian immigrant parents were high-skill high education immigrants, who for some reason had a low income at the time of the survey. Maybe their credentials weren’t accepted here, for example.
If true, that begs the question of why these highly educated high-skill immigrants had low incomes?
Between jobs? Money saved and taking some time off? Not atypical for some highly paid industries.
The 1978-1983 birth cohort may have had parents who came in as refugees, rather than the usual skilled worker and graduate student paths. Such parents may have had education/skills, but:
Mismatch between education/credentials to available jobs.
Language (English learning) issues.
Small businesses in ethnic markets that may not be that profitable, or (like small businesses in general) may underreport income for taxation ( https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/everyone-tries-to-dodge-the-tax-man-and-it-keeps-getting-easier/ ).
The other issue is some of the main ways middle to upper income parents try to transfer those advantages to their children is by putting their kids into better schools(which usually requires either paying private tuition or buying in an expensive neighborhood) and paying for private tutors and coaches. That requires money, which these low income immigrants don’t have, even if they were lawyers in their home country. At least for Asian immigrants, the study seems to provide more questions than answers.