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<TD align=right><FONT face="tahoma, sans-serif" size=2>Saturday,
January 27, 2007</FONT></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><BR><!--include virtual="/inc/story_guts_print.asp"-->
<H2>Study ties discrimination to skin tone, not race </H2>
<P class=byline><SPAN class=name><A
href="http://www.spokesmanreview.com/news/bylines.asp?bylinename=Travis%20Loller">Travis
Loller </A></SPAN><BR>Associated Press<BR>January 27, 2007</P><!---------Code for Big Ads-------------------><!---------End Code for Big Ads------------------->
<P>NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Light-skinned immigrants in the United States make more
money on average than those with darker complexions, and the chief reason
appears to be discrimination, a researcher says.</P>
<P>Joni Hersch, a law and economics professor at Vanderbilt University, looked
at a government survey of 2,084 legal immigrants to the United States from
around the world and found that those with the lightest skin earned an average
of 8 percent to 15 percent more than similar immigrants with much darker
skin.</P>
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<TD></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>"On average, being one shade lighter has about the
same effect as having an additional year of education," Hersch said.</P>
<P>The study also found that taller immigrants earn more than shorter ones, with
an extra inch of height associated with a 1 percent increase in income.</P>
<P>Other researchers said the findings are consistent with other studies on
color and point to a skin-tone prejudice that goes beyond race.</P>
<P>Hersch took into consideration other factors that could affect wages, such as
English-language proficiency, education, occupation, race or country of origin,
and found that skin tone still seemed to make a difference in earnings.</P>
<P>That means that if two similar immigrants from Bangladesh, for example, came
to the United States at the same time, with the same occupation and ability to
speak English, the lighter-skinned immigrant would make more money on
average.</P>
<P>"I thought that once we controlled for race and nationality, I expected the
difference to go away, but even with people from the same country, the same race
– skin color really matters," she said, "and height."</P>
<P>Although many cultures show a bias toward lighter skin, Hersch said her
analysis shows that the skin-color advantage was not because of preferential
treatment for light-skinned people in their country of origin. The bias, she
said, occurs in the United States.</P>
<P>Economics professor Shelley White-Means of the University of Tennessee at
Memphis said the study adds to the growing body of evidence that there is a
"preference for whiteness" in America that goes beyond race.</P>
<P>William Darity Jr., an economics professor at the University of North
Carolina, said Hersch's findings are similar to a study he co-authored last year
on skin tone and wages among blacks.</P>
<P>"We estimate that dark- or medium-skinned blacks suffered a discriminatory
penalty of anywhere from 10 percent to 15 percent relative to whites," he
said.</P>
<P>Darity said it is not clear whether the bias is conscious or
subconscious.</P>
<P>Hersch said her findings, which will be presented at the annual meeting of
the American Association for the Advancement of Science next month in San
Francisco, could support discrimination lawsuits based not on race, but on
color.</P></DIV></BODY></HTML>