People with a college degree are less likely to be unemployed than people without one (source: Andrew Sullivan):
But a college degree helps blacks less than it helps whites, especially in this recession (source: Andrew Sullivan):
See also Devah Pager’s stunning data on race, drug convictions, and employment prospects (in text or video). (Hint: it’s better to be a white felon than a black person with no felony record).
Via Thick Culture.
Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.
Comments 11
Ben — May 9, 2011
"But a college degree helps blacks less than it helps whites, especially in this recession... [look at this graph]"
That is some seriously flawed stats-interpretation (you're neglecting the priors), but your conclusions happen to be correct. As of Q1 2011, the unemployment rate among blacks was 38% lower for those with a college degree than for those without, but among whites the rate was 46% lower.
Interestingly, if you look at a high school diploma as the threshold, the drop in unemployment is nearly the same between those two races. That is, getting a high-school diploma is equally strong evidence for employment between blacks and whites; it is specifically continuing education where the disparity shows up.
Kate — May 9, 2011
"But a college degree helps blacks less than it helps whites, especially in this recession."
That may be true, but it isn't apparent from this data alone. We'd need to know what the overall unemployment rates were for blacks and whites in addition to the data here.
For example, if the unemployment rate among blacks is, for example, 15 percent, and, as the graph shows here, the unemployment rate for black college grads is 7.5 percent, you could conclude that a college degree decreased unemployment by half. If the overall unemployment rate for whites is (hypothetically) 4%, and the unemployment rate for white college grads is also 4%, you'd conclude that having a college degree didn't really help whites in terms of gaining employment. I have no idea if the numbers I threw out are true, but without that data, you really can't draw the conclusion that you're reaching.
TL;DR version: Without knowing how unemployment affects blacks vs. whites generally speaking, you can't draw a conclusion about how valuable a college degree is for blacks vs. whites in terms of avoiding unemployment.
Still really cool graphs, though.
Arney Molstar — May 10, 2011
And... Blacks tend to go to lower end, cheaper colleges. Meaning that employers generally don't look at two equal candidates, but a candidate with inferior education then the other. In a recession, when deciding who to lay off, people with a lower quality education seems like the easiest choice.
Kelly — May 10, 2011
Wait, I'm very confused by the first chart. Isn't it graphing rates in UNemployment? That would mean that people without a college degree are most likely to be unemployed, whereas people with a Bachelor's degree are least likely to be unemployed.
Apologies if I'm missing something obvious here.
Victoria Liu — May 11, 2011
“But a college degree helps blacks less than it helps whites, especially in this recession.”
This could be a common mistake between correlation and causation. The author assumes that race is a cause for lesser employment during the recession. However, what we are not told is the degree to which the data is controlled for, briefly mentioned by commenter Arney Molstar. The source from which the graph is taken does not shed light on the nuances of this data.
Age, years of employment, prior experience, type of degree (i.e. major), the presence of on-the job training, internal performance evaluations, etc., are all relevant factors to the likelihood of an individual being able to keep his/her job during a recession. These factors may or may not be correlated with race. However, without knowing these important details, this graph is misleading and potentially makes the mistake of pointing out race as a cause for the data rather than a correlative factor.
Yannick — May 12, 2011
But in principle, there ought to be no difference in any of those factors, unless as a group black college graduates all had shittier career progress. And then we're back to square one.
Parachronistic — June 4, 2012
There are racial differences but white males aren't immune to discrimination. I have epilepsy and when my license is suspended getting a job is 10 times as hard. I pull out that state ID and sometimes they panic "OH MY GOD!" in reaction to a state ID and lots of assumptions occur. Was he drinking? Did he kill anyone? Then if I say that I just had a seizure and have to wait a year or so to drive again...I suddenly did all of those things and they just dont talk to me.....Yes, there is a racially divided trend in socioeconomic status that has been there for several generations....It happens to white people too...all you need is a label and a reason for some idiot to panic.
Micheal Jordan — June 27, 2023
It is a critical issue that sheds light on the disparities and systemic challenges that many individuals from marginalized communities face even after obtaining a higher education degree.
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