The Income Differences Among Asian Americans: Intersectionality of Race and Gender

• In Event: 1552 - Section on Asia and Asian America Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 min): Table 8: Movements and Inequalities: Asian American Perspectives

Abstract

Asian Americans are one of the fastest growing minority groups in the United States and contribute largely to the American workforce. The Asian American experience is unique in understanding the cultural paradox of achieving high educational attainments that exceed other minority groups and even White Americans. In this paper by using data from the Current Population Survey (1194-2019), I compare the overall trends of income for Asians against other racial categories and within distinct Asian ethnic subgroups. Moreover, this paper investigates the differentiating annual earnings among Asian American men and women. Results suggest that among general population, Asian men and women have the highest level of annual income compared to other racial categories. Furthermore, my analyses extend this line of research by disaggregating Asian Americans through focusing on Asian ethnic subgroups based on region of origin in Asia and analyzing the gender pay gap within these groups. Results show that gender pay gap has been widening for the last 25 years among Asian ethnic subgroups based on gender, and Asian women are more disadvantaged in the labor market compared to Asian men with all variables controlled.

Authors

• Tiffanie Vo, University of Oklahoma

• Cyrus J. Schleifer, University of Oklahoma

• Peyman Hekmatpour, University of Oklahoma