Determinants of Income Differentials: Comparing Asians with Whites and Blacks

Census 2000 data are used to examine the determinants of income level of six Asian groups as compared with whites, the majority group, and blacks, another minority group. Results of descriptive and multivariate analysis lend support to both human capital investment and structural barriers as explanation for income differentials among the various racial groups. All else equal, Asian Indians did not have significantly different income levels as compared with white, whereas Chinese, Filipinos, Korean and Vietnamese had significantly less household income than whites and Japanese households had significantly more. All Asian groups had significantly more household income than black households. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, Inc. 2006