Speaker: Michael D. Steinberger, Public Policy Fellow, The Williams Institute

Tuesday, October 2, 2012
12:20-1:40 pm
UCLA School of Law
Room 1314
*Lunch will be provided.

Abstract: Based on analysis of data from the 2000 U.S. Census, Black and Hispanic partnered gays and lesbians have, on average, less education than their white counterparts, while Asians tend to have the highest average educational attainment. Racial groups also sort differently across occupations and geographic regions. Like whites, Asian and Hispanic partnered lesbian women earn more than their heterosexual counterparts, with particularly large bonuses over cohabiters. Black lesbians earn less on average than their married counterparts. For men, white and Asian members of same-sex couples earn less than heterosexual married men of the same race and more than cohabiting men. For Black and Hispanic men, on the other hand, there was a modest wage boost associated with being in a same-sex couple, and an even larger boost over different-sex cohabitating individuals. Using a Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition it is found that differences in human capital accumulation (particularly education) are the main source behind the observed wage advantages across races, while occupational sorting plays a minimal role at best. Using a DiNardo, Fortin, Lemieux decomposition the paper also explores the sexual orientation wage gap across the distribution of earnings for each race.

To RSVP, visit:
http://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/events/upcoming-events/the-sexual-orientation-wage-gap-for-racial-minorities/