Education, Occupation, and Wage Differences Between White and Black Men

Past research has indicated repeatedly that black men receive lower wages than white males working in the same occupation. Past findings have also suggested that these within-occupation race differences in men's success in convertin their years of schooling into dollars of earnings. This paper reexamines the role of returns of schooling in producing differences in earnings of white and black men who are employed in the same occupation. The role of schooling into dollars of earnings. This paper reexamines the role of returns of schooling in producing differences in earnings of white and black men who are employed in the same occupation. The role of schooling in determining wages of all workers is also considered. A hypothesis suggesting that years of schooling and years of labor-force experience have joint nonadditive effects on earnings is formulated, tested, and supported by several regression analyses. A measure of race differences in wage returns to schooling based on partial derivatives is computed from separate regression analyses of earnings of white and black males in each of 62 detailed occupation categories. These occupation categories. These occupation categories subtend 79% of the black male labor force (and 68% of the total labor force) which reported its occupation in the 1960 census of population. The results surprisingly indicate that within-occupation race differences in wage returns to schooling are not large enough to cause substantial race differences in pay for incumbents of those occupations employing the vast majority of black men in the labor force. This finding suggests that racial differences in the quality of schooling are largely irrelevant to within-occupation race differences in earnings.