IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp6255.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Racial and Ethnic Inequality in Employer Provided Fringe Benefits

Author

Listed:
  • Mok, Wallace

    (Chinese University of Hong Kong)

  • Siddique, Zahra

    (University of Bristol)

Abstract

We examine racial and ethnic inequality in offers of employer provided fringe benefits (health insurance, life insurance and pension). Restricting to full-time workers in the private sector, we find that African Americans are significantly less likely to get fringe benefit offers than non-Hispanic whites after we control for individual differences in age and youth characteristics that matter for labor market success using the 1979 cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. We do not find ethnic differences in the 1979 cohort or racial/ethnic differences in the 1997 cohort to be significantly large after controlling for individual differences in age and youth characteristics. Irrespective of race, ethnicity, gender or cohort, we always find that older workers are more likely to get fringe benefit offers as are workers with higher cognitive ability and years of education at age 22. We find that the cross-sections from the 1979 cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth have more fringe benefit offers than cross-sections from the 1997 cohort. A large part of the difference across cohorts can be explained by the older age profile of cross-sections from the 1979 cohort. Some part of the difference across cohorts can also be explained by differences in family background characteristics, particularly changing family structures which are important for non-Hispanic whites and for African American men. Improvements in cognitive ability and years of education at age 22 for the 1997 cohort increase the unexplained difference in fringe benefit offers across the two cohorts for women (irrespective of race or ethnicity), but not for men.

Suggested Citation

  • Mok, Wallace & Siddique, Zahra, 2011. "Racial and Ethnic Inequality in Employer Provided Fringe Benefits," IZA Discussion Papers 6255, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
  • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6255
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp6255.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Daniel S. Hamermesh, 1999. "Changing Inequality in Markets for Workplace Amenities," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(4), pages 1085-1123.
    2. Neal, Derek, 2006. "Why Has Black-White Skill Convergence Stopped?," Handbook of the Economics of Education, in: Erik Hanushek & F. Welch (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Education, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 9, pages 511-576, Elsevier.
    3. Benjamin Artz, 2010. "Fringe benefits and job satisfaction," International Journal of Manpower, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 31(6), pages 626-644, September.
    4. Mok, Wallace & Siddique, Zahra, 2009. "Racial Differences in Fringe Benefits and Compensation," IZA Discussion Papers 4435, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Derek Neal, 2004. "The Measured Black-White Wage Gap among Women Is Too Small," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(S1), pages 1-28, February.
    6. Roland G. Fryer, Jr, 2010. "Racial Inequality in the 21st Century: The Declining Significance of Discrimination," NBER Working Papers 16256, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Helen Levy, 2006. "Health Insurance and the Wage Gap," NBER Working Papers 11975, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Kevin Lang & Michael Manove, 2011. "Education and Labor Market Discrimination," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(4), pages 1467-1496, June.
    9. Joseph G. Altonji & Prashant Bharadwaj & Fabian Lange, 2012. "Changes in the Characteristics of American Youth: Implications for Adult Outcomes," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 30(4), pages 783-828.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Winters, John V. & Hirsch, Barry, 2012. "An Anatomy of Racial and Ethnic Trends in Male Earnings," IZA Discussion Papers 6766, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Roland G. Fryer, Jr. & Devah Pager & Jörg L. Spenkuch, 2013. "Racial Disparities in Job Finding and Offered Wages," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 56(3), pages 633-689.
    2. Mok, Wallace & Siddique, Zahra, 2009. "Racial Differences in Fringe Benefits and Compensation," IZA Discussion Papers 4435, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Kevin Lang & Jee-Yeon K. Lehmann, 2012. "Racial Discrimination in the Labor Market: Theory and Empirics," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 50(4), pages 959-1006, December.
    4. D’Haultfœuille, Xavier & Maurel, Arnaud & Zhang, Yichong, 2018. "Extremal quantile regressions for selection models and the black–white wage gap," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 203(1), pages 129-142.
    5. Patrick Bayer & Kerwin Kofi Charles, 2016. "Divergent Paths: Structural Change, Economic Rank, and the Evolution of Black-White Earnings Differences, 1940-2014," NBER Working Papers 22797, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Ross Levine & Alexey Levkov & Yona Rubinstein, 2008. "Racial Discrimination and Competition," NBER Working Papers 14273, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Joseph G. Altonji & Prashant Bharadwaj & Fabian Lange, 2012. "Changes in the Characteristics of American Youth: Implications for Adult Outcomes," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 30(4), pages 783-828.
    8. Jonah B. Gelbach, 2016. "When Do Covariates Matter? And Which Ones, and How Much?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(2), pages 509-543.
    9. Borowczyk-Martins, Daniel & Bradley, Jake & Tarasonis, Linas, 2018. "Racial discrimination in the U.S. labor market: Employment and wage differentials by skill," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 45-66.
    10. Roland G. Fryer, Jr, 2010. "Racial Inequality in the 21st Century: The Declining Significance of Discrimination," NBER Working Papers 16256, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Jeremiah Richey & Nikolas Tromp, 2021. "The Black–White wage gap among young men in 1990 versus 2011: With sample selection adjustments," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 73(4), pages 780-805, October.
    12. Hao Dong & Taisuke Otsu & Luke Taylor, 2022. "Nonparametric estimation of additive models with errors-in-variables," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(10), pages 1164-1204, November.
    13. Bond, Timothy N. & Lehmann, Jee-Yeon K., 2018. "Prejudice and racial matches in employment," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 271-293.
    14. Gonzalo Castex, 2017. "College risk and return," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 26, pages 91-112, October.
    15. Nicole Maestas & Kathleen J. Mullen & David Powell & Till von Wachter & Jeffrey B. Wenger, 2023. "The Value of Working Conditions in the United States and the Implications for the Structure of Wages," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 113(7), pages 2007-2047, July.
    16. Peter McHenry & Melissa McInerney, 2015. "Estimating Hispanic-White Wage Gaps Among Women: The Importance of Controlling for Cost of Living," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 36(3), pages 249-273, September.
    17. Fortin, Nicole & Lemieux, Thomas & Firpo, Sergio, 2011. "Decomposition Methods in Economics," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 1, pages 1-102, Elsevier.
    18. Mary Kate Batistich & Timothy N Bond, 2023. "Stalled Racial Progress and Japanese Trade in the 1970s and 1980s," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 90(6), pages 2792-2821.
    19. William J. Collins & Michael Q. Moody, 2017. "Racial Differences in American Women's Labor Market Outcomes: A Long-Run View," NBER Working Papers 23397, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Peter Arcidiacono & Patrick Bayer & Aurel Hizmo, 2010. "Beyond Signaling and Human Capital: Education and the Revelation of Ability," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(4), pages 76-104, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    economics of minorities and races; non-wage labor costs and benefits;

    JEL classification:

    • I11 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Analysis of Health Care Markets
    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J32 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Nonwage Labor Costs and Benefits; Retirement Plans; Private Pensions

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6255. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.