HETEROGENEITY IN BLACK-WHITE ECONOMIC DISPARITIES IN THE UNITED STATES

In this dissertation, three studies examine how taken-for-granted assumptions around how researchers measure race, social mobility, and education obscure heterogeneity in Black-White economic inequality. In chapter 2, I analyze Black-White wealth disparities based on skin tone using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97). Examining early adulthood, I find that the Black-White wealth gap widens over time, but at faster rate for darker-skin than lighter-skin Black individuals. These disparities in wealth vary based on different measures of wealth and are robust to parental socioeconomic status and demographic factors. By relying on a sample born after the Civil Rights Movement, these findings suggest that colorism persists in shaping the lives of Black individuals, dispelling concerns about cohort effects influencing previous evidence of skin color stratification. In chapter 3, I reassess the traditional method of measuring racial differences in social mobility. Instead of relying on short-term income associations, I examine the relationship between childhood and adulthood household income across every available age of childhood and adulthood. The findings reveal significant racial variation in how childhood income predicts adulthood income. Specifically, childhood income is a stronger predictor of early adulthood income than mid-adulthood for Black respondents, while the opposite pattern is observed for White respondents. These results challenge long-standing findings on the association between parents' and children's incomes in mid-adulthood, highlighting race-based variations in life-cycle biases. In chapter 4, I examine the effect of college sector on wealth and debt accumulation. While prior research has found a wealth premium associated with a college education, these studies have overlooked how these effects may vary by the type of college attended. Drawing on data from the NLSY97, I show that for-profit college alumni have similar assets, but greater debt compared to individuals that graduated from high school but never attended college. In contrast, for-profit college alumni have similar debt but substantially fewer assets than non-profit college alumni. I conclude by discussing the implications for the general Black-White wealth gap.