ENGLISH PROFICIENCY, EDUCATION, AND THE CONDITIONAL ECONOMIC ASSIMILATION OF HISPANIC AND ASIAN ORIGIN MEN

We consider the hypothesis that earnings of Asian and white Hispanic m en follow a pattern called conditional economic assimilation: White Hi spanic and Asian men who do not speak English well and who have little schooling tend to earn less money than white nonHispanic men who also do not speak English well and who also have little schooling, but Asi ans and white Hispanics who are fluent in English and have completed h igh school tend to earn about as much as nonHispanic whites with simil ar schooling and English fluency. Although prior literature and contem porary discrimination law attributes minority earnings disadvantages t o lower rates of return to human capital for minority group members th an for white nonHispanics, a mathematical model indicates that conditi onal assimilation is produced by higher rates of return to English lan guage fluency and schooling for Asians and white Hispanics than for wh ite nonHispanics. Analyses of 1980 U.S. Census Public Use Microdata Sa mples dramatically supports that model. We also consider theoretical d ifferences between race and ethnicity and differences between the mech anisms which produce race and ethnicity effects on minority earnings. Some of these hypothesized mechanisms involve human capital and worker productivity, while others involve discrimination. Discrimination mec hanisms imply an interaction effect between English fluency and educat ional attainment for white nonHispanics and, to a lesser extent, white Hispanics, but not Asians, while human capital mechanisms imply langu age-schooling interactions for all. Our data analyses are consistent w ith the hypothesis that discrimination mechanisms are operative. (C) 1 997 Academic Press.