Chapter 4: White-Hispanic Earnings Inequality In Urban Labor Markets: A Study of White Advantage

In this research, we undertake the first comprehensive study of White-Hispanic earnings inequality in U.S. urban labor markets. We use critical race theory to conceptualize White advantage as the ratio of White-to-Hispanic earnings of full-time, full-year workers in the labor market. We examine the effects of occupational race segregation and globalization and labor market transformation variables on White advantage for White and Hispanic workers in 151 metropolitan statistical areas in 2000. Because of well-known gender differences in labor markets, we conduct separate analyses for men and women. Our models control for the effects of salient demographic, labor market experience, and labor market structure variables. We find that occupational segregation contributes significantly to the growing levels of White advantage in metropolitan areas. We also find that globalization and labor market transformation variables—specifically global capital, foreign direct investment, exports, immigrants, and casualization of the labor market—significantly exacerbate the earnings gap for Whites and Hispanics. While there are not heavy gender differences in the findings, we do find that globalization and labor market transformation variables are more important for men and occupational race segregation is more important for women. We discuss the implications of our findings for future analyses of White advantage.