Hayward Derrick Horton

Discrimination over the life course: a synthetic cohort analysis of earnings differences between black and white males, 1940-1990

Using data from the 1940-1980 United States Microdata Extract File and the Current Population Surveys 1990 Annual Demographic File, this study examines three competing explanations of the disparity in black and white male earnings over the life course. The “legacy of discrimination” explanation suggests that current racial disparities in earnings reflect nothing more than past discrimination against older blacks, and that the earnings of younger black and white males should be similar over the life course. The “cumulative effects of discrimination” explanation suggests that the black-white earnings gap increases over the life course, and that this divergence in earnings exists for younger cohorts of males as well as older cohorts. The “vintage hypothesis” argues that the net black-white earnings gap reflects differences in self-investments in human capital and that the racial earnings gap should be virtually constant over time and over the life course for all cohorts (vintages) of black and white male workers. This study presents a synthetic cohort analysis of the effects of aging on the disparity in earnings for black and white males from 1940-1990. It shows that aging has a curvilinear effect on the black-white earnings gap. Younger black males in each year and cohort analyzed were closer to their white male counterparts than middle-aged blacks. However, there was a convergence in the earnings of elderly black and white males. While not completely consistent with any of the formulations, the findings most closely conform to the predictions of the cumulative effect of discrimination explanation.

Lost in the storm : The sociology of the black working class, 1850 to 1990

Contemporary sociologists implicitly have assumed that the race-class debate has been resolved: Blacks tend to fall in one of two categories - the black middle class or the truly disadvantaged. However, lost amid the controversies over the supposed privileges of the former and the problems of the latter is the plight of the forgotten category of blacks: the black working class. Accordingly, we present a sociological analysis of the black working class and ask: How has the black working class changed compared to its white counterpart from 1850 to 1990? Employing the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) for our analysis, we find that for the last five decades blacks are more likely to be working class than middle class or bottom class. In addition, blacks currently are more likely to be working class than are whites. In fact, in recent decades the percentage of blacks who are working class exceeds those for whites and, indeed, are higher than ever recorded for whites

Rural-Urban Differences in Black Family Structure An Analysis of the 1990 Census

The nature and structure of the African American family continues to be a topic of importance in sociology. Since the much-maligned Moynihan report of the 1960s, sociologists have linked Black family structure to persisting disadvantage. However, the overwhelming majority of past studies have focused on the urban Black family. Accordingly, this article employs data from the 1990 Public Use Microdata Samples to compare the rural African American family to its urban counterpart. Results from the logistic regression analysis reveal that for rural Blacks, family structure is less important than community type and race relative to poverty status. These findings suggest a need for a refinement of the underclass debate.

Race, Class, and Family Structure: The Case of Family Income:

African Americans continue to represent one of the most disadvantaged groups in the United States, lagging behind whites on most measures of well-being. Most explanations for the black-white disparity focus on the continued effects of racial discrimination. Other explanations attribute disadvantage to differences in social class origins or family structures. This study provides a critical test of the “racial discrimination,” “social class,” and “family structure” perspectives in regard to family income using data from the 1968 and 1988 Current Population Surveys. Major findings include: 1) race continued to have a negative effect on family income after controls in both 1968 and 1988; 2) race declined in importance by a very modest amount from 1968 to 1988; 3) in both 1968 and 1988, the negative effect of race was stronger for higher-status African Americans than for lower-status African Americans; and 4) the negative effect of race was greater for married-couple families than for female-headed families. Explanations for the findings are offered.

Credit Where Credit is Due?: Race, Gender, and Discrimination in the Credit Scores of Business Startups

This research seeks to understand the degree to which credit scores of new business startups are influenced by racial or gender discrimination. It examines the degree to which access to business credit lines is influenced by racial and gender-related factors that go beyond would-be borrowers’ credit scores. Using credit data from new startups, the analysis finds that, when controlling for firm and human capital characteristics, Black-owned startups receive lower than expected business credit scores. Whites are more favorably treated in credit score determination than are African Americans with the same firm characteristics and owner characteristics. Moreover, Whites are more favorably treated when it comes to access to credit lines than are African Americans, Latinos, and Asians with the same firm characteristics, owner characteristics, and credit scores. Men are more favorably treated when it comes to access to credit lines than are women. A Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition suggests that credit lines for Black-owned businesses would more than double, Latino-owned businesses’ lines of credit would nearly triple, Asian-owned businesses’ lines of credit would more than triple, and those where the primary owners are women would be more than twice as large if their business lines of credit were determined in the same way as those for businesses owned primarily by Whites and by men. The implications of these results are discussed.

Separate and Unequal: The Impact of Socioeconomic Status, Segregation, and the Great Recession on Racial Disparities in Housing Values

The effects of race, class, and residential segregation on housing values continue to be a major focus of sociological research. Nevertheless, there has yet to be a study that places these factors in the context of the great recession of 2008 and 2009. Accordingly, the purpose of this work is to assess the extent to which the great recession affected housing values for African Americans and whites relative to the joint effects of race, class, and residential segregation. The following research questions are addressed: (1) How do segregation and socioeconomic status (SES) affect racial differences in housing values? (2) What were the levels of racial disparity in housing values before, during, and after the great recession? and (3) Were the housing values of higher status African Americans insulated from the negative impact of segregation and the great recession compared with their lower status counterparts? Using the Integrated Public Use Micro-data Series, the 2010 metropolitan area dissimilarity and population density scores, and hierarchical linear modeling, the findings revealed that the great recession exacerbated racial differences in housing values most in the higher SES categories. Higher status African Americans were more disadvantaged relative to comparable whites than lower status African Americans compared with similar whites in terms of housing values. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of the findings.