Social Indicators of Equality for Minorities and Women - University of ...

portion of black males. In the much larger highschool category, the overqualification rate is 50percent greater than that for the majority males.One of the noteworthy points of this indicator isthe shift of relative overqualification for majorityfemales from 1970 to 1976. In 1970 majority femaleswere 41 percent less likely than majority males to beoverqualified in their occupations, but in 1976 theywere about as likely as the males to be overqualified.This change suggests that the increased labor forceparticipation of women 14 might have produced adiscriminatory side effect of limiting their participationto occupations that do not match their skills.Earnings for Educational LevelsStaying in school is often assumed to increase aperson's chances of getting better jobs and makingmore money. 15 Figure 2.7 displays the pattern of theaverage (median) earnings in 1975 for different levelsof educational attainment for black males andfemales and for majority males and females. Clearly,earnings tend to be higher for people with highereducational attainment. This is especially evident inthe substantial difference between those with highschool diplomas or some college and those with 4 ormore years of college.A basic question of equality is whether thefinancial rewards of schooling are equivalent forwomen, minorities, and majority men. Phrasednegatively, the question becomes, "Are the penaltiesfor dropping out of high school or college, or of notgoing to college, the same for women and minoritymales as they are for majority males?" The answer isdefinitely no. This disparity is graphically displayedin figure 2.7. It is evident that there are large earningsdifferences for black males and females and majorityfemales, compared with majority males, at eacheducational attainment level. In no educationalcategory do the female averages match the maleaverages. Majority female college graduates haveaverage earnings less than majority males with a highschool education. Although educational attainmentseems to be linked to earnings, people in differentgroups with the same educational attainment certainlydo not earn the same income. This indicator, inconjunction with the data on college attainment (see14 U.S., Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, CurrentPopulation Reports, A Statistical Portrait of Women in the United States(April 1976), Series P-23, no. 58, table 7-2, p. 28.15 Christopher Jencks, Inequality (New York: Basic Books, 1972), p. 221.16 The selection of this category for the indicator is somewhat arbitrary, but4 years of college seem to represent the clearest educational achievementtable 2.4), reflects a bleak picture for black ycmen and women and for majority women. Thfwho do overcome the obstacles to a collegetion find financial rewards significantly lower {those for majority males.Although figure 2.7 displays the pattern of (inequality of earnings by educational attain]quite well, it is important to have an indicatequantify this earnings inequality so patterns (time can be monitored. The indicator selecteethis purpose is the ratio of earnings figures forearning some income during the year and withmore years of college (i.e., the group supposed!most mobile, ready to reach equality, andsubject to disadvantages of limited schooling). 1