Is skin tone correlated with job prestige?

The General Social Survey rated the skin darkness of a sample of black Americans, ranging from "very dark brown" to "very light brown." Biologically oriented researchers might see the question as a rough measure of the percentage of European ancestry, while sociologists would see it as a measure of discrimination--lighter-skinned blacks getting better treatment. Respondents were also given a job prestige score that ranges from 16 to 80--16 is a shoeshine and 80 is a physician. Here are the job prestige means listed by skin tone:

You can see that average job prestige tends to rise with lighter skin. The mean for blacks with "very light brown" skin is roughly two-thirds of a standard deviation higher than the mean for "very dark skin" blacks. 

The pattern can be interpreted in at least two ways: 1) genetic--blacks with more European ancestry tend to rise in the status hierarchy much more than African blacks, or 2) sociological--whites discriminate more against darker blacks, and perhaps light-skinned blacks have white (privileged) relatives who gave them advantages. 

For several reasons, I'm inclined toward the genetic explanation. For one, my experience is that when a white person is interacting with a black person, his thought is, "I'm talking with a black person," not, "I'm talking with a light-skinned black person." For another, how do those Nigerian immigrants do so well in the US when their skin tends to be so dark? The sociologist would predict severe discrimination. The biologist would argue that African immigrants are a select group of Africans--above average in IQ and drive--and this overwhelms any bias they might experience. 

It's a clean sweep: IQ is more predictive of education, income, and job prestige than dad's social class

 Someone at Twitter, I forget now, wondered if IQ or one's social class was more important for adult success. Well, the General Social Survey can help with this. I threw in basic demographics as controls. 

Here are OLS results for income:

Looking at the betas, you can see that IQ is more strongly predictive of income than father's socioeconomic status (PASEI). Notice how race is not statistically significant when IQ is included in the model. 

And job prestige? 

IQ is much more predictive of job prestige than father's PASEI. 

The results for education should be even stronger for IQ:

 

The beta for IQ is much larger than for dad's social class. How far one goes in school depends much more on brains than dad's wallet (or his other influences). 

Are French Americans an underprivileged minority?

 In "The Son Also Rises," Gregory Clark presents historical data that suggests that French Americans are an underprivileged minority. They have been underrepresented among doctors and lawyers, for example. 

Do General Social Survey data support this view? 

Here are mean years of schooling for the French versus other white Americans:

No difference in education. Here's median income in 1986 dollars:

A lower median income for Americans of French descent. And mean job prestige:

The French have a slightly higher mean job prestige. And IQ?

Basically the same mean IQ.

Clark predicted to the French would eventually move to average levels. It looks like they've made it.  

GSS data: Do Jews have prestigious jobs because they are smart, or are there other factors?

 Another IQ issue arose on Twitter today: Does IQ explain the disproportionate number of Jews in high positions in the new Biden administration? Or is there some other factor? The General Social Survey can't answer this specific question, but we can look at job prestige in general. The table below shows that at the same IQ level, Jews tend to have noticeably higher average prestige scores than non-Jews. 

So, according to GSS data, Jews tend to have characteristics beyond IQ that boost their job prestige. What would those be? I'd be guessing, but in the case of Biden, it might not be a coincidence that most Jews are Democrats and are a key presence in the Democrat Party. My impression is that Jews are very achievement-oriented and are drawn to centers of power. In addition to that, I suspect that a Jew is also likely to enjoy the benefit of being born into a social network of high-achieving people. Connections matter.  

Which explains how prestigious your job is--intersectional theory or HBD?

On Twitter, Steve Sailer writes, "The pattern that gay black males tend to assimilate into white corporate culture better than do straight black males deserves more social science attention than it has received.  It's hard to notice if you are Woke and believe in the conventional wisdom about Patriarchy, etc."

Let's test this kind of idea with General Social Survey (GSS) data.  Based on intersectionality theory--experiencing more discrimination with each additional minority status--job prestige rankings should look something like this:

Top Tier--Zero Strikes Against
Straight white male

Second Tier--One Strike Against
Straight white female
Gay white male
Straight black male

Third Tier--Two Strikes Against
White lesbian
Straight black female
Gay black male

Fourth Tier--Three Strikes Against
Black lesbian

By contrast, biological theory would focus on traits that are important for high-status jobs, and the obvious candidate is intelligence and the glaring racial gap in IQ. So this view would predict that the big divide will be race, with whites above average in job prestige and blacks below average. The other demographics shouldn't matter much. 

And what are the facts?  According to GSS data for 19,901 respondents: 

Mean occupational prestige 

Gay white male  47.1
White lesbian  46.2
Straight white male  45.2
Straight white female  44.5

Total Sample  44.2

Black straight female  40.9
Black gay male  40.7
Black lesbian  39.8
Black straight male  39.2

As predicted, the major divide is race.  All whites are above average, and all blacks are below.  If intersectional theory were true, black lesbians would be on the bottom, and straight white males would occupy the top position.  Neither is the case.  Biological theory would predict no disadvantage for homosexuals--in fact, I reported in a previous analysis that they have above-average IQs--and indeed they do well.

And relevant to Steve's point about black males, homosexuals do better than straights, which contradicts the claim that it's all about intersectional discrimination.

Biology explains more than sociology.

Laziness and job status among blacks

In his book White Guilt, Shelby Steele argues that few blacks excel in high status jobs because they lack the required skills. From childhood they are told that failure is not their fault, so they never learn that they are responsible for their lack of skills. While other people are working hard to become competent to avoid feeling like failures, blacks don't fear failure; after all, it's not their doing, it's the system.

GSS data can give us some idea if a work ethic among blacks is as important as Steele thinks. Respondents were asked:  "To what extent do you agree or disagree that you see yourself as someone who tends to be lazy." Answers ranged from "strongly agree" (1) to "strongly disagree" (5). I calculated the means for those with low job prestige and those with high prestige. The mean work ethic score is 4.19 for the low-status group (n = 115) and 4.03 for the high-status group (n = 66). The two means are not signficantly different. According to these data, higher class blacks are no more hard working than their lower class counterparts. (The means indicate a bias toward thinking that one is not lazy, but this is not really a problem when comparing the two groups unless the bias is systematically stronger in one group than the other.)

IQ is more important than social class

This is a structural equation model of a cohort of Swedish men. It shows that IQ is an important determinant of income and especially occupational position.  Much of its influence is indirect: it is a strong predictor of educational level which, in turn, is a powerful determinant of both income and especially occupational position. Parent's social class, by contrast, is comparatively less important. It has little to no direct influence on income or job position, and predicts educational level only moderately.

A whole academic field--sociology--developed on the view that social class is of critical importance. If disciplines emerged as a result of empirical support, students could major in IQiology.

Skin color and occupational prestige among blacks

As a follow-up to the last post, I looked to see if skin color among blacks is related to occupational prestige. Interviewers rated skin color from very dark brown to very light brown. Here are the mean prestige scores (GSS data, sample size = 454):


Mean occupational prestige scores

Very dark brown 28.3
Dark brown 28.4
Medium brown 35.3*
Light brown 33.2
Very light brown 42.7*

*significantly higher than the very dark brown group

Lighter groups tend to have better jobs than darker groups. This is consistent with the common observation that elite blacks often look like they have more European ancestry.

Does religiosity reduce female ambition?

It's my impression that religious women are more oriented toward family than irreligious women. Traditional religion focuses on the importance of motherhood over worldly ambition.

How do we measure occupational ambition? Let's look at occupational prestige and number of hours worked per week. I'll throw in IQ as a control:

Standardized OLS Coefficients, DV = Job prestige (sample size = 7,841)

Church attendance .08*
IQ .32*

Standardized OLS Coefficients, DV = Hours worked last week (sample size = 7,208)

Church attendance -.07*
IQ .00

* statistically significant

Interesting. Religious women work more prestigious jobs, but they tend to work fewer hours. They work smarter, not harder.

As women move up in the workplace, the institution of marriage declines

High Job Prestige

Mid-level Job Prestige

Low Job Prestige

In the last post, I showed that marital decline has accompanied the movement of women into the workforce. What about occupational status? Feminists have told us for decades that increases in female job prestige will equalize men and women, and equality will improve the quality of relationships. The graph above (generated from GSS data for Americans 30 and over) shows marital status by job prestige--high, middle, and low prestige as we move from top to bottom. The green section of the bars indicate the percent divorced, and yellow is for separated. About 35% are the middle and high status women are separated, divorced, or never married, compared to 25% of low-prestige women. Once again, liberal social scientists have gotten it wrong: as women move up in the workplace, the institution of marriage declines.

Bias against the rich takes another knock: We all know that if your born into a rich family, your future is guaranteed, right? Some Americans go from rags to riches, but Daddy will make sure the opposite never happens. The General Social Survey asked respondents about their occupations and those of their fathers. I looked at the 262 men whose fathers had prestige scores in the top 10%. If the "silver spoon" hypothesis is correct, all these guys should have prestige scores at least as high as Pop's. On the other hand, if the process were purely random, only 10% of the sons would equal Dad's accomplishments. So what do the data tell us? Only 26.4% of these guys equalled or surpassed their childhood status. Basically three-quarters of them were riches to rags (well, not rags usually, but you get the picture).

Of course, a person is not surprised by this if he is familiar with the idea of the regression to the mean, but in our innumerate society, few are. (By the way, "he" was used intentionally in the last sentence).

(And don't think that I'm some richie trying to defend my class: I'm the son of a maintenance man.)

Women and job prestige: I'm interested in two questions: which ethnic group has the most prestigious women, and how do they compare to their male counterparts? Using General Social Survey data on Americans of various ethnicities, I first list the mean occupational prestige and then the gap with males:


Mean prestige score for females (female - male in parentheses)

Chinese 51.68 (+1.15)
Jewish 48.89 (-3.94)
Russians 48.01 (-1.26)
Scots 47.37 (+.77)
Indians 47.23 (-10.60)
Danes 46.91 (-.73)
Swedes 46.13 (+.49)
English/Welsh 45.74 (-.89)
Norwegians 45.16 (-.53)
Filipinos 45.04 (+3.93)
Italians 44.61 (-.70)
Czechs 44.55 (-.76)
French 44.51 (+1.27)
Irish 44.10 (-1.09)
Poles 44.09 (-2.66)

All women 43.66 (-.48)

Germans 43.54 (-.58)
Spaniards 43.20 (-1.47)
Puerto Ricans 41.71 (+3.06)
Blacks 41.16 (+2.46)
French Canadians 40.80 (-1.67)
American Indians 40.80 (+.97)
Dutch 40.76 (-.86)
Mexicans 38.62 (-1.18)

Chinese women have the most prestigious jobs by far, and they even exceed Chinese men by 1.15 points. They and Indians are two non-white groups in the top five. The Russian number is elevated some since many Jews are from Russia. Northern and Eastern Europeans have the highest numbers for gentile whites. Four groups--two of them white--are lower than black women.

Women in eight of the 22 groups exceed the men, and males are only ahead a little bit in the overall numbers. The female advantage is large for Filipinos, Puerto Ricans, and blacks.

So, these numbers tells us that prestigious jobs in America are in no way reserved for men--in many cases, women have higher status positions. Nor do non-white women find that they cannot ascend to the highest ranks. Not only do Chinese women surpass all other women, but also the vast majority of men.