Performance of Asian Americans in the U.S. labor market

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2009-05

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Abstract

Using Census of Population 1990 & 2000 1% Public Use Microdata Samples, this paper aims to analyze the performance of US-born Asians in the US labor market. Particularly this paper focuses on Chinese, Japanese and Filipino, the three populous groups among Asian Americans.

In this paper I find that Chinese and Japanese are not disadvantaged compared to non-Hispanic Whites, with Chinese and Japanese having 20% higher earnings on average than Whites in 1990 data while the differential gets larger in 2000 data. More than sixty percent of the wage differential between Chinese and White and Japanese and White can be explained by the difference in personal characteristics. To be specific, Chinese Americans achieve the highest earning level because of their higher education attainment; Japanese Americans work the longest hours. Filipino Americans have the lowest earnings among these groups due to less years of working experience and lower education attainment.

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