Collaborative Research: Workforce Diversity, Coworker Trust, Skin Shade, and Competitiveness: Wage Determination of Black Americans Reconsidered

这个项目通过检验为什么种族工资差距在某些黑人工人群体中可能更大的两个假设，扩展了经济学家关于黑人和白人工资差异的知识。首先，我们假设，当经济上处于次等地位的群体获得更多的劳动力市场竞争属性时，他们将面临更大程度的劳动力市场歧视，从而维持有利于优势群体的社会等级。我们把这个假设称为“歧视的功能”。我们将进行各种测试，在这些测试中，我们比较了黑人工人中无法解释的工资差异水平，这是一种歧视的标准衡量标准，这些工人具有不同数量的理想劳动力市场属性。其次，我们提出肤色较浅的黑人比肤色较深的黑人从同事合作中获益更多，这将导致肤色较浅的黑人的种族工资差距较小。我们提出肤色与生产力之间存在联系的概念，因为工作环境是一个人际互动影响工作绩效的社会环境。在我们看来，同事之间可以相互分享一些技能，从而提高个人生产力和工资。然而，同事之间的合作（包括分享技能）很可能取决于共性，我们设想表现型相似性是一种共性，员工可能会围绕这种共性形成联盟。因此，我们预计白人工人通常比黑人工人从事更好的工作，他们更愿意与肤色较浅的黑人合作。如果是这样的话，浅色皮肤的黑人在与白人同事一起工作时，会比其他肤色较深的黑人工作效率更高，这将转化为浅色皮肤的黑人获得更高的工资。本研究使用了1979年收集的美国黑人全国调查（NSBA）和2001年收集的美国生活全国调查（NSAL）的数据来估计工资方程。估计的公式将揭示肤色对工资的贡献，估计将揭示黑人和白人之间无法解释的工资差异是否对那些被认为在工作场所具有高度竞争力的黑人更大。由于两项调查相隔20年，因此可以探索肤色和工资之间的关系是如何随着时间的推移而变化的。研究中使用的数据集是独一无二的，因为它们提供了一个人的肤色数据和一个人是否在一个群体中工作的信息。对于工作团队成员，有关于其工作小组的规模和种族组成的信息。这些数据集还提供了关于个人认知能力和积累技能的信息，这些信息可以用来衡量他们在工作场所的竞争力。这些研究的结果将揭示种族工资歧视的程度是否随工作场所环境和表型特征而变化。因此，将获得关于纠正工资歧视的适当政策形式和执行这种政策倡议的可能可行性的新见解。华盛顿与李大学（Washington and Lee University）的本科生是少数群体的成员，他们计划攻读社会科学或人文学科的研究生，他们将成为进行这些研究的研究小组的一部分。这些学生将在夏季参加北卡罗来纳大学教堂山分校的少数民族本科生研究助理项目。

This project extends the knowledge of economists regarding black-white wage differentials by examining two hypotheses for why the racial wage gap might be larger for some groups of black workers. First, we postulate that as an economically subaltern group acquires more competitive labor market attributes they will face a greater intensity of labor market discrimination so as to maintain the social hierarchy in favor of the dominant group. We refer to this hypothesis as the Functionality of Discrimination. We will perform a variety of tests in which we compare levels of unexplained wage differences, a standard measure of discrimination, across black workers that have alternative amounts of desirable labor market attributes. Second, we propose that blacks with lighter skin shade benefit more from coworker cooperation than darker skinned blacks who are otherwise comparable, which will lead to a smaller racial wage gap for lighter skinned blacks. We advance the notion that there is a link between skin shade and productivity since the work setting is a social environment where personal interaction influences job performance. In our view, coworkers have skills they may share with one another that enhance personal productivity and wages. However, cooperation between coworkers (including the sharing of skills) is likely to depend on commonalities and we envision phenotype similarity as a commonality that workers may form coalitions around. Thus, we expect white workers, who generally are in better jobs than black workers, to be more cooperative with lighter skinned blacks. If this is the case then lighter skinned blacks will be more productive than otherwise comparable darker skinned blacks from working with white coworkers, which will translate into greater wages for lighter skinned blacks. Data from the National Survey of Black Americans (NSBA) collected in 1979 and data from the National Survey of American Life (NSAL), which resembles the National Survey of Black Americans but were collected in 2001, are used in this study to estimate wage equations. The estimated equations will reveal the contribution of skin shade to wages and the estimates will reveal if unexplained wage differences between blacks and whites are greater for those blacks considered highly competitive in the work place. Since the surveys are two decades apart how the relationship between skin shade and wages has changed over time can be explored. The data sets used in the study are unique in that they provide data on a person's skin shade and information on whether an individual works in a group. For work team members there is information on the size and on the racial composition of their workgroup. These data sets also provide information on an individual's cognitive ability and accumulated skills, which can be used to gauge their competitiveness in the work place. The findings generated by these studies will shed light on whether the extent of racial wage discrimination varies with workplace context and with phenotypical attributes. Thus, new insights will be gained on the appropriate form of policies to redress wage discrimination and on the likely feasibility of implementing such policy initiatives. Undergraduate students at Washington and Lee University, who are members of a minority group and who plan to attend graduate school in the social sciences or humanities, will be part of the research team conducting these studies. These students will participate in the Minority Undergraduate Research Assistant Program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill during the summer.