Skin Tone's Decreasing Importance on Employment: Evidence from a Longitudinal Dataset, 1985-2000

39 Pages Posted: 24 Aug 2010

See all articles by Randall Akee

Randall Akee

IZA Institute of Labor Economics

Mutlu Yuksel

IZA; Dalhousie University

Abstract

We investigate the effect of skin tone on employment probabilities in a longitudinal data set. Using an objective measure of skin tone from a light-spectrometer and a self-reported measure of race we find that over time the effect of skin tone on employment has diminished. These results hold both across the white and African-American samples as well as within the African-American sample itself with regard to skin tone. Further investigation indicates that all of the gains can be attributed to African-American women; there are no changes in the employment probabilities for African-American men in the 15 year panel data. We find that the expansion of employment for women is concentrated in the services occupations.

Keywords: race, gender, employment discrimination, skin tone, panel data

JEL Classification: J15, J16, J71

Suggested Citation

Akee, Randall and Yuksel, Mutlu and Yuksel, Mutlu, Skin Tone's Decreasing Importance on Employment: Evidence from a Longitudinal Dataset, 1985-2000. IZA Discussion Paper No. 5120, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1663140 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1663140

Randall Akee (Contact Author)

IZA Institute of Labor Economics ( email )

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

Mutlu Yuksel

Dalhousie University ( email )

Halifax, Nova Scotia B3H 3J5
Canada

HOME PAGE: http://myweb.dal.ca/mt899590/

IZA ( email )

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

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