The effects of sexism and racism on American migrants’ hourly wages

Abstract

In this paper, we study how sexist and racist beliefs, as reported in the General Social Survey affect the hourly wages of American whites and blacks whose state of work differs from their state of birth. Ordinary least squares and Two-stage least squares estimates show that higher levels of sexism and racism where individuals were born (background sexism) negatively impact the hourly wages of black and white men and women but that sexism (racism) particularly affects black women’s (white and black men’s) wages. We argue that background sexism influences wages through internalized sexist beliefs during individuals’ formative years. Particularly for black women, and internalized racism a more negative factor for white and black men’s hourly wages. Finally, we find that white women’s wages benefit the most from or are the least negatively impacted by higher levels of sexism and racism in this demographic’s state of work (market sexism and racism). Moreover, black women are the demographic whose wages are negatively impacted to the greatest extent by gender prejudices in their state of work.