Choosing Racial Identity in the United States, 1880-1940

Posted in Economics, History, Media Archive, Papers/Presentations, Passing, United States on 2020-01-22 01:56Z by Steven

Choosing Racial Identity in the United States, 1880-1940

National Bureau of Economic Research
NBER Working Paper No. 26465
November 2019
76 pages
DOI: 10.3386/w26465

Ricardo Dahis, Ph.D. Candidate in Economics
Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois

Emily Nix, Assistant Professor of Finance and Business Economics
University of Southern California

Nancy Qian, James J. O’Connor Professor of Managerial Economics & Decision Sciences
Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois

This paper documents that many black males experienced a change in racial classification to white in the United States, 1880–1940, while changes in racial classification were negligible for other races. We provide a rich set of descriptive evidence on the lives of black men “passing” for white, such as marriage, children, the passing of spouses and children, migration and income.

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The Effects of School Desegregation on Mixed-Race Births

Posted in Campus Life, Economics, Media Archive, Papers/Presentations, Politics/Public Policy, United States on 2016-08-22 19:44Z by Steven

The Effects of School Desegregation on Mixed-Race Births

The National Bureau of Economic Research
NBER Working Paper No. 22480
Issued in August 2016
47 pages
DOI: 10.3386/w22480

Nora Gordon, Associate Professor
McCourt School of Public Policy
Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.

Sarah Reber, Associate Professor of Public Policy
Luskin School of Public Affairs
University of California, Los Angeles

We find a strong positive correlation between black exposure to whites in their school district and the prevalence of later mixed-race (black-white) births, consistent with the literature on residential segregation and endogamy. However, that relationship is significantly attenuated by the addition of a few control variables, suggesting that individuals with higher propensities to have mixed-race births are more likely to live in desegregated school districts. We exploit quasi-random variation to estimate causal effects of school desegregation on mixed-race childbearing, finding small to moderate statistically insignificant effects. Because the upward trend across cohorts in mixed-race childbearing was substantial, separating the effects of desegregation plans from secular cohort trends is difficult; results are sensitive to how we specify the cohort trends and to the inclusion of Chicago/Cook County in the sample. Taken together, the analyses suggest that while lower levels of school segregation are associated with higher rates of mixed-race childbearing, a substantial portion of that relationship is likely due to who chooses to live in places with desegregated schools. This suggests that researchers should be cautious about interpreting the relationship between segregation—whether residential or school—and other outcomes as causal.

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The Complexity of Immigrant Generations: Implications for Assessing the Socioeconomic Integration of Hispanics and Asians

Posted in Asian Diaspora, Census/Demographics, Latino Studies, Media Archive, Papers/Presentations, United States on 2016-02-17 20:18Z by Steven

The Complexity of Immigrant Generations: Implications for Assessing the Socioeconomic Integration of Hispanics and Asians

National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Working Paper No. 21982
February 2016
58 pages
DOI: 10.3386/w21982

Brian Duncan, Professor of Economics
University of Colorado

Stephen J. Trejo, Professor of Economics
University of Texas, Austin

Because of data limitations, virtually all studies of the later-generation descendants of immigrants rely on subjective measures of ethnic self-identification rather than arguably more objective measures based on the countries of birth of the respondent and his ancestors. In this context, biases can arise from “ethnic attrition” (e.g., U.S.-born individuals who do not self-identify as Hispanic despite having ancestors who were immigrants from a Spanish-speaking country). Analyzing 2003-2013 data from the Current Population Survey (CPS), this study shows that such ethnic attrition is sizeable and selective for the second- and third-generation populations of key Hispanic and Asian national origin groups. In addition, the results indicate that ethnic attrition generates measurement biases that vary across groups in direction as well as magnitude, and that correcting for these biases is likely to raise the socioeconomic standing of the U.S.-born descendants of most Hispanic immigrants relative to their Asian counterparts.

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The Fluidity of Race: “Passing” in the United States, 1880-1940

Posted in Census/Demographics, Economics, Media Archive, Papers/Presentations, Passing, United States on 2015-01-20 20:05Z by Steven

The Fluidity of Race: “Passing” in the United States, 1880-1940

The National Bureau of Economic Research
NBER Working Paper No. 20828
January 2015
76 pages
DOI: 10.3386/w20828

Emily Nix
Department of Economics
Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut

Nancy Qian, Associate Professor of Economics
Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut

This paper quantifies the extent to which individuals experience changes in reported racial identity in the historical U.S. context. Using the full population of historical Censuses for 1880-1940, we document that over 19% of black males “passed” for white at some point during their lifetime, around 10% of whom later “reverse-passed” to being black; passing was accompanied by geographic relocation to communities with a higher percentage of whites and occurred the most in Northern states. The evidence suggests that passing was positively associated with better political-economic and social opportunities for whites relative to blacks. As such, endogenous race is likely to be a quantitatively important phenomenon.

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If race or ethnicity is endogenous in certain circumstances, a self-identity may or may not be selected to distance oneself from a subordinate group or to improve one’s standing with or acceptance into the dominant group.

Posted in Excerpts/Quotes on 2012-04-27 18:19Z by Steven

Racial and ethnic self-identification have economic consequences because the choice of self-identity is likely to be entwined with the acceptance of and acculturation into dominant social norms. If race or ethnicity is endogenous in certain circumstances, a self-identity may or may not be selected to distance oneself from a subordinate group or to improve one’s standing with or acceptance into the dominant group. In a study of people of Mexican descent, Mason (2001) tests a model in which acculturation is a dominant strategy, and finds that light-complected people of Mexican descent may acculturate more easily. Murguia and Telles (1996) report different educational opportunities for Mexicans of light and dark complexion and argue that these may result from conscious choices. Phenotypic differences, they argue, influence individual strategies. Light-skinned people of Mexican descent learn early in life that by assimilating or acculturating they can defuse negative stereotypes and attain more than their dark-complected counterparts. Later in life, light-skinned Mexicans are able to increase their incomes by adopting a non-Hispanic white identity (Mason 2001). Yet there may also be situations in which members of the subordinate group decide to maintain identities separate from the dominant group.

Howard Bodenhorn and Christopher S. Ruebeck, “The Economics of Identity and the Endogeneity of Race,” National Bureau of Economic Research: Working Paper 9962 (September 2003): 3-4.

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The Economics of Identity and the Endogeneity of Race

Posted in Census/Demographics, Economics, History, Media Archive, Papers/Presentations, United States on 2011-09-25 02:19Z by Steven

The Economics of Identity and the Endogeneity of Race

National Bureau of Economic Research
Working Paper 9962
September 2003

Howard Bodenhorn, Professor of Economics
Clemson University, Clemson, South Carolina

Christopher S. Ruebeck, Associate Professor of Economics
Lafayette University, Easton, Pennsylvania

Economic and social theorists have modeled race and ethnicity as a form of personal identity produced in recognition of the costliness of adopting and maintaining a specific identity. These models of racial and ethnic identity recognize that race and ethnicity is potentially endogenous because racial and ethnic identities are fluid. We look at the free African-American population in the mid-nineteenth century to investigate the costs and benefits of adopting alternative racial identities. We model the choice as an extensive-form game, where whites choose to accept or reject a separate mulatto identity and mixed race individuals then choose whether or not to adopt that mulatto identity. Adopting a mulatto identity generates pecuniary gains, but imposes psychic costs. Our empirical results imply that race is contextual and that there was a large pecuniary benefit to adopting a mixed-race identity.

1. Introduction

Economic and social theorists have modeled race and ethnicity as a form of personal identity adopted in response to the costliness of maintaining a specific identity (Hechter, Friedman, and Appelbaum 1982; Stewart 1997; Mason 2001; Akerlof and Kranton 2000; Darity, Mason, and Stewart 2002). These models of racial and ethnic identity recognize that race and ethnicity is contextual because racial and ethnic identities are fluid (McElreath, Boyd, and Richerson, undated). Harris and Sim (2001) report recent evidence of this fluidity among contemporary mixed black-white youth. Although 75 percent of today’s mixed black-white children self-identify as black, 17 percent self-identify as white, and the remaining 8 percent prefer not to select a single racial designation. About 10 percent of mixed-race youth adopt one racial designation at school and a different one at home. It is evident that among modern mixed race youth racial identification is contextual.

Racial and ethnic self-identification have economic consequences because the choice of self-identity is likely to be entwined with the acceptance of and acculturation into dominant social norms. If race or ethnicity is endogenous in certain circumstances, a self-identity may or may not be selected to distance oneself from a subordinate group or to improve one’s standing with or acceptance into the dominant group. In a study of people of Mexican descent, Mason (2001) tests a model in which acculturation is a dominant strategy, and finds that light-complected people of Mexican descent may acculturate more easily. Murguia and Telles (1996) report different educational opportunities for Mexicans of light and dark complexion and argue that these may result from conscious choices. Phenotypic differences, they argue, influence individual strategies. Light-skinned people of Mexican descent learn early in life that by assimilating or acculturating they can defuse negative stereotypes and attain more than their dark-complected counterparts. Later in life, light-skinned Mexicans are able to increase their incomes by adopting a non-Hispanic white identity (Mason 2001). Yet there may also be situations in which members of the subordinate group decide to maintain identities separate from the dominant group.

Our study considers the choices and life chances of black and mixed black-white individuals residing in the urban U.S. South prior to the Civil War. The experience of mixed black-white individuals in this period is particularly germane to the study of the social and economic consequences of racial identification because the so-called one-drop rule was not yet firmly established. Most Upper South states legally adopted a one-fourth rule separating black from white. But the line was not as sharply drawn because the dominant white culture accepted mixed-race people as a separate class. As Williamson (1984, p. 13) notes for Virginia, “there were some people who were significantly black, visibly black, and known to be black, but by the law of the land and the rulings of the courts had the privileges of whites.” Lower South states generally adopted no formal definition of “whiteness,” and were even more accepting of a separate mixed-race or mulatto class. “Known and visible mulattoes could by behavior and reputation be ‘white’” (Williamson 1984, p. 19). Acculturation was an option for at least some mixed-race people living in the antebellum South.

We first model a mixed-race individual’s choice of self-identity. Acculturation brought a degree of acceptance from the dominant white community, which opened the door to a wider set of economic opportunities, but acculturation carried an implicit cost, namely that by adopting the norms of the dominant white culture (dress, language, mannerisms, religious affiliation, group membership, etc.), the individual alienated himself or herself from the black community. To the extent that the recognition of an individual’s heritage generates utility, the rejection of black culture was costly.

We then test the model empirically. We find that African Americans were more likely to identify as mulatto when there were already a substantial number of other mulattos who had formed social networks and established a community. Yet, the probability of declaring a mulatto identity declined with the size and extent of the African-American community. We interpret this to mean that if blacks ostracized mulattos for separating themselves socially and economically, then the larger the black community (holding the number of mulatto households constant) the more costly it was to be ostracized. Similarly, whites became less accepting of a mulatto’s distinctiveness as the city became increasingly African American and thus showed mulattos fewer preferences.

Once we demonstrate that the choice of a mulatto identity was associated with racial composition of the individual’s neighborhood and city, we then investigate the economic consequences of adopting a mulatto identity.  We estimate differences in wealth between blacks and mulattoes and find that mixed-race householders, both male and female, accumulated more wealth than black householders. Regression decompositions suggest that a substantial portion of the wealth gap was due to racial identification and to community factors. Consistent with our model, we find that mixed-race people realized smaller advantages relative to blacks as the size of the African-American community increased both absolutely and relatively. Thus, mixed-race people benefited when they could form a distinct intermediate racial class, standing between the dominant white and subordinate black communities…

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