Abstract

This paper uses the Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) from the 1990 U.S. Population Census to examine Japanese-American workers and the their wages.  For native males 25 to 64 years of age employed full-time, those of Japanese ancestry earn $17.16 per hour on average compared with $15.66 for Whites, $11.55 for Blacks, $12.22 for Hispanics, and $16.81 for Asians (a group including Japanese).  The corresponding female values are $12.71 for Japanese-Americans, $10.64 for Whites, $9.78 for Blacks, $9.58 for Hispanics, and $12.88 for all Asians.  Regressions on individual level data enable estimation of wage premiums earned by individuals with average group characteristics and their decomposition into an explained component, resulting from differences in human capital, and an unexplained component.  In comparison to natives with West European ancestry, Japanese-Americans earn estimated positive wage premiums of 11.6 percent for males and 20.4 percent for females.  Differences in measured human capital levels explain nearly 90 percent of the wage premium for males and 80 percent of the premium for females.  Thus, the primary reason for the relatively high wages earned by Japanese-Americans appears to be their high levels of education and other measures of human capital.

JEL Classification Codes:
   J71 - Discrimination
   J3 - Wages, Compensation and Labor Costs

Key Words:
   Wage Differential
   Japanese-American
   PUMS (public use micro-sample data from the U.S. Population Census)
   Discrimination

Outline:
I.    Introduction  - Wage Differentials and Discrimination
II.   Japanese and Asians in the U.S. Labor Market
III.  Japanese-Americans and Their Wages, 1990
IV. Aggregate Regression Analysis with Dummy Variables
V.   Estimation of Wage Equations on Data Subsets
VI.  Conclusion