Volume 30, Number 4 (Fall) 1995
Rivkin, Steven G. 1995. "Black/White Differences in Schooling and Employment." Journal of Human Resources 30(4):826-852.
This paper investigates the extent to which academic preparation, the structure of labor market opportunities, and exposure to nonmarket income alternatives explain race and gender differences in schooling and employment. Despite lower overall high school continuation and college attendance rates. Black men and women in the High School and beyond Longitudinal Survey were actually more likely to continue high school and attend college than Whites with similar mathematics and verbal test scores. In Contrast, Black school leavers had far lower employment rates than Whites with similar test scores. Multinomial logit estimates show that fewer job opportunities for Blacks offer a partial explanation for the observed patterns of schooling and employment. There is little or no evidence, however, that community crime and welfare recipiency rates affected the probability of employment for Blacks or Whites.
Steven G. Rivkin is an assistant professor of economics at Amherst College. He would like to thank Bruce Fallick, Larry Rivkin, Finis Welch, Graeme Woodbridge, two anonymous referees, and participants at seminars at Amherst College, Northwestern, Texas A&M, and UCLA for their many helpful comments, as well as Hana Ruzicka for her expert graphics assistance. The data used in this article can be obtained beginning in June 1996 through June 1999 from the author: Amherst College, Department of Economics, Amherst, MA 01002.
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