Racial discrimination in salaries? Anybody knows why? - (Dec/01/2009 )

I was going through The Scientist's website and came across salary surveys. Their 2008 review shows that there is significant difference in salaries if you check among the ethnicity, like asian, hispanic, black or white. The graph is here. Anybody knows the reasons? I am looking for concrete reasons, not hypothetical ones.

We trump for equality and then such stark difference is nothing but hypocracy, what you guys say?

Thanks for your comments.

the graph is available only for premium subscriber.

we are discriminated to view the discrimination!!!

I am not a premium subscriber but I can see it. Don't know the glitch. here it goes.

are all the subjects working in same country or similar economic background?

We cannot compare earning of someone working in Asia and someone working in Europe/USA. There will be a bias.

yeah i second that.. also one astonishing fact that i can see from the graph is that an average white earns the same salary irrespective of the fact that he s a BS or a MS!!! Tat really astonishes me!!
and the black directly do their PhD and noone does MS??!! or is it that the data s not available!!!

Sorry for not mentioning earlier.
This statistic is only for the US. (otherwise it just doesn't make sense to compare)

I would question the B. S. and M.S. data. How many people responded to this survey? How many years' experience do they have? Did the survey ask for their yearly salary, or their hourly rate (and then calculated annual salaray based on that)? Graduate students at my institution make a higher hourly rate than I do as a full-time staffer with 10 years' experience, but work only half the hours.

Just like anything in science, a simple graph doesn't always tell the whole story. First off, I'll say that I don't necessarily think the graph is wrong, or that there isn't a gap between races OR sexes when it comes to salary. However, there are a lot of questions that graph doesn't answer. Sample size, for one. Secondly, the population being sampled... it is at a university? In industry? Gov't jobs? Furthermore, no information is given as to the age of the people sampled. Are they all new graduates? 10 years out of school? 20 years? One big thing, considering this is the US, is that an older generation of workers in the US (I would think) would be primarily white, just based on the race issues the country had 30-40 years ago. That's quite a long time where there was only on race of people getting degrees and locking down those jobs. Therefore, they're going to be the ones that have been in a position for 20-30 years, and have climbed the salary/wage ladder in that time. They would be the ones with the most seniority and pulling in the bigger money.

Now, maybe some of these things ARE addressed on the original site, or a better explanation of the sample is given. But like I said, regardless of those issues, I wouldn't be surprised to see that even if the samples were done on similarly aged people in similar jobs, that there would be a difference in race or sex.

hmmm...and is it adjusted for cost of living in different areas? this can make an enormous difference.