Black Women Who Earn Degrees Make Substantially More

I just came across an article that was shared in the context of a discussion about the economic woes of black women, but I saw a glimmer of hope in the article. The article talks about how black women are lagging behind Asian and white women economically even though black women are more educated than ever. However, even though more black women are earning college degrees, that percentage is only at 22%.

In 2014, the median income for a black woman working full-time was $34,000. Among black women with a bachelor's degree or higher, the median income was $50,000. With the average tuition at a public university being around $9k per year, black women are getting a return on their investment rather quickly.

So, while the article focuses on the overall negatives of black women earning less and having higher unemployment rates than white and Asian women, at least there's evidence that black women can improve their financial situations by earning college degrees.

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/06/black-women-economy/530022/

 

Like you I can’t ignore the negatives, but the positives give me hope. As more black women experience success there will be more successful people for young black women to model.

 

I read the stats on that a couple of years ago. Black and Hispanic people tend to choose less lucrative majors than white and Asian people. There aren't a lot of black and Hispanic people majoring in STEM or other high-paying fields such as finance and accounting.

 

It's all about exposure. There is also a certain level of ignorance in the general public where college is looked at as a place to chase a dream without considering reality. Just because a person loves 18th century English Literature doesn't mean it's the wisest choice to pursue as a major, and the job match statistics back that up. Kids are rarely told this, and it winds up doing a ton of damage to their future.

 

I think parents also often give bad advice about what's marketable. Common degrees older people often tell younger people to get: business administration, criminal justice, and anything in science. Not all science majors lead to high-paying jobs. Women, in general, tend to choose lower paying, life science majors when they do choose STEM majors.

I don't think there's anything wrong with not choosing your major solely based on potential earnings. The vast majority of college graduates won't end up in poverty. Many people are happier doing what they love rather than chasing after the biggest paycheck. If women prefer the life sciences over the physical sciences, then that's perfectly fine. It's okay that they're not going to make as much as someone with a physics degree. I'd rather make $50k doing something I love than $100k doing something I hate. Work can take up most of your waking hours.

 

I think a person should do what makes them happy, but there is also a way to balance that. Most people never come to the point of seeing that what they love should be a hobby, maybe even a passionate hobby, but still a hobby. Everybody won't have success at these things. I've seen some of my own family members who never realized this and threw away fortunes doing something that ultimately destroyed them and their entire family in the end. If they'd just kept it as a hobby or side hustle that destruction would've never happened.

Certainly. But one could make the argument that if you make that 100K just long enough, save and invest, you can then step away and go do what you love. I've done that at different times where I worked a job I didn't care for but the money was good, saved, built it up, then got the hell outta there and spent some years doing something I really wanted to do.

This and...

... THIS and Claudia Goldin's work are all things the gender wage gap conspiracy theorists refuse to acknowledge and agree with. Men and women naturally gravitate toward different things and men gravitate toward higher-paying (and often more dangerous) jobs than women do and that's even still now with women dominating college campus enrollments, because ultimately men and women are different no matter how much of this new age pseudoscience seeks to re-engineer us.

 

For the most part, psychologists, biologists, and neuroscientists accept that male and female brains are wired differently. There is some influence from nurture, though, because of cultural norms. There's also a theory that occupations that used to be dominated by men now pay less, when adjusted for inflation, because they're currently dominated by women. It leaves some wondering why supply and demand is not driving up wages in female-dominated occupations with a shortage of workers.

The gender wage gap issue, however, focuses on men and women doing the same jobs. It's been found that women aren't as aggressive in negotiating their salaries.

 

It definitely should. And any situation where two people are doing the same job and one is paid less, there should be an examination of why. If both are performing a competent job, they should both be paid equally. But one of the things Claudia Goldin pointed out was that most of the reporting being pushed s of aggregate wages which fail to take into account the lionshare of those amounts being drawn-in by top male CEOs and other male Executives. In the rare cases that the numbers are reported accurately, there is a gap, but often it's less than a dollar. Now, we know that with the way averages work even less than a dollar can be significant if looked at in individual circumstances, but she warned that BLS labor hours still being higher for men is a huge factor that has to be taken into account in the overall picture, and things like pregnancy and other female-specific medical concerns that lead to job absence are another considerable factor that impacts wage statistics.

I've read that and it certainly must be a factor as well. I've personally worked around a lot of assertive women so I haven't known many meek women who wouldn't speak up. My only reservation would be with regard to the number of jobs where a wage negotiation would even be possible or something that happens a lot below supervisory/management and executive levels. I just imagine the average person goes to work and gets paid what the company gives them and the only flexibility is to take what they give or hit the door.

 

I've read about how pregnancy and time off has affected women's earnings.

I've mostly worked for the government and government contractors for the past several years, so there wasn't much negotiation in those jobs.