Chapter 14- Ethnic Inequalities in Relation to IQ

Ethnic differences in education, occupation, poverty, unemployment, illegitimacy, crime, and other signs of inequality have preoccupied scholars and thoughtful citizens for hundreds of years. In this chapter the authors examine the differences after cognitive ability is taken into account.

Herrnstein and Murray found that Latinos and whites of similar cognitive ability have similar social behavior and economic outcomes. For blacks and whites, the story was more complicated. For the two most vital indicators of success, educational attainment and entry into a prestigious occupation, the black/white discrepancy reverses. After controlling for IQ, larger numbers of blacks than whites graduate from college and enter a profession. On the other hand, the B/W gap in annual income or in persons below the poverty line narrows after controlling for IQ but still remains sizable. Similarly, differences in unemployment, labor force participation, marriage and illegitimacy get smaller but remain significant after extracting the effect of IQ. These inequalities must be explained by other factors in American life. The role of cognitive ability has seldom been considered in past studies of the various inequalities that exist in American culture. The authors believe that doing so in future research could clarify issues and focus attention on the factors that produce the most troubling inequalities. America's social problems are most often expressed in ethnic terms. For example, in the 1992 recession white unemployment was under seven percent, but it was fourteen percent for blacks. Similarly, the poverty rate at that time was twelve percent for whites and thirty-three percent for blacks. Such statistics, and the deliberation over what they should mean for policy have been hotly debated in the press and political circles since the early 1960's. Today, as Latinos have become an increasing larger percentage of the population, the discussion has centered on similar disparities between Latinos and whites. This chapter examines the question of what happens to these ethnic differences in economic and social behavior when intelligence is held constant. The primary goal is to broaden the search for answers after three decades during which scholars have ignored the contribution of IQ to ethnic differences in the main social outcomes of everyday life. First the authors look at the indicators of success that were the focus of Part 1, then the indicators of problems that were the focus of Part 11. They begin with what should be considered one of Americas great success stories. Ethnic differences in higher education, occupations and wages largely disappear after controlling for IQ, often they vanish. In this sense, America has equalized these central indicators of social success. In 1990, 84 percent of whites had achieved a high school diploma as compared to 73 percent of blacks and 65 percent of Latinos. But these percentages are based on everybody, at all levels of intelligence. What are the odds of blacks and Latinos with average IQs of 103 (the mean IQ of all high school graduates at the time) completing high school? The answer may surprise you, it did me. The odds of graduation from high school were 93 percent for blacks, 91 percent for Latinos compared to 89 percent for whites, assuming again that they all had IQs of 103. The statistics were similar for college graduates. Overall, before controlling for IQ, the probability of achieving a bachelor's degree was 27 percent for whites, 11 percent for blacks and 10 percent for Latinos. But for persons with mean IQs of 114 ( the average IQ of college graduates) the graduation rates for whites was 50 percent, 68 percent for blacks and 49 percent for Latinos. The authors discuss the black advantage in Chapter 19. One of the positive findings about ethnic differences has been that education pays off in occupational status for minorities roughly the same as it does for whites. Holding education constant, similar proportions of blacks, Latinos and whites are found in the various occupational categories. However, as with education, after accounting for intelligence blacks and Latinos are overrepresented in high-status occupations like medicine, engineering and teaching. The probability of being in a high-IQ occupation, for those with an average IQ of 117, was 10 percent for whites, 26 percent for blacks and 16 percent for Latinos. The story was the same for wages. In 1989 white workers made an average of $27,373, blacks $20,994 and Latinos $23,409; however, people of average IQ made roughly the same, around $25,000. With the exceptions of managers/administrators and unskilled laborers where blacks earned about 16 percent less than whites, the job market rewards blacks and whites of equivalent cognitive ability nearly equally in all nine job categories studied. Turning now to poverty the narrative does not change, controlling for age but not IQ, the poverty rate was 7 percent for whites, 26 percent for blacks and 18 percent for Latinos. But for a persons of average age and mean IQs of 100, the poverty rare stayed the same for whites (6 percent) but dropped to 11 percent for blacks and 9 percent for Latinos. But, even after controlling for IQ the black poverty rate remained almost twice as high as the rate in whites. Why does this gap persist while the differences in educational achievement, occupations and wages did not? The search for the answer to this question takes us further from things that IQ can explain into ethnic differences with less well understood roots. Black unemployment has been higher than white unemployment for as long as records have been kept. In 1992, 21 percent of blacks were unemployed, more than twice the rate of whites (10 percent). The unemployment rate for Latinos was 14 percent. Controlling for cognitive ability reduces this difference for Latinos but not for blacks. Fifteen percent of blacks with average IQs of 100 were unemployed in 1998 as compared to 11 percent for whites. The unemployment rate of Latinos with mean IQs of 100 was 11 percent identical to that of whites. With respect to blacks, there are ethnic differences other than IQ which explain their inability to do well in the work force. The authors do not speculate further along these lines. Historically, the black-white difference in marriage rates was small until the 1960s and then widened. By 1991 only 38 percent of black women ages 15 to 44 were married, compared to 58 percent of white women. Only 8 percent of the black-white marriage gap disappears after controlling for IQ. A black women with a mean IQ of 100 has a 58 percent chance of being married by age 30 compared to a 79 percent of a white women with the same IQ. The difference between black and white rates of illegitimacy goes back at least to the beginning of the nineteenth century. In 1960, 24 percent of black children were illegitimate as compared to only 2 percent of white children, a huge proportional difference. By 1990 68 percent of all black babies were illegitimate as compared to 39 percent for Latinos and 18 percent for whites. This disparity cannot be explained away no matter what variables are entered into the equation, including controlling for IQ. In this respect, the illegitimacy rate for women with average IQs of 100 was 10 percent for whites, 17 percent for Latinos and 51 percent for blacks. Welfare, in 1991 about 21 percent of black women ages 15 to 44 were on AFDC as compared to 12 percent for of Latino and four percent of white women. At that time 49 percent of black women, 30 percent of Latino women and 13 percent of white women had been on welfare at some time in their life time. After controlling for IQ, 12 percent of white women with mean IQs of 100 were on welfare as compared to 30 percent of blacks and 15 percent of Latino women with average IQs. Children living in poverty. In 1992, 47 percent of black children under the age of 18 were living in poverty. This extraordinarily high figure was nearly as bad for Latino children, with 40 percent under the poverty line. For non-Latino whites the proportion was 14 percent. In women with average IQs of 100, 6 percent of white children were living in poverty while 14 percent of black and 10 percent of Latino children born to women with average IQs were living below the poverty line. The story was much the same for the intellectual development of children in the different ethnic groups. Seven percent of children born to white mothers scored in the lower decile on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary test while 55 percent of black children and 54 percent of Latino children did so. Controlling for IQ, reduced the ethnic disparities considerably but there still was a 20 point gap between white children and both black and Latino children born to mothers with average IQs. Finally crime, blacks are 3.8 times as likely to be arrested, relative to their numbers in the population, than whites or Latinos. Sociologist Robert Gordon analyzed black-white differences in juvenile delinquency and found that the difference in the prevalence of black and white delinquency is explained by differences in the IQs of the delinquents, independent of the effect of socioeconomic status. The relationship of cognitive ability to adult criminal behavior among whites and blacks is similar. Before controlling for IQ the chances of a white being incarcerated for a crime is 2 percent for whites, 13 percent for blacks and 6 percent for Latinos. After correcting for IQ the ethnic criminality gap is two percent for whites, five percent for blacks and three percent for Latinos. If one of Americas goals is to rid itself of racism and discrimination we should welcome the finding that a Latino and white of equal cognitive ability have the same chances of getting a college education and working in a white-collar job. A black with similar cognitive abilities has even a higher chance of having those good things happen. We also should rejoice at the fact that Latinos, blacks and whites of similar cognitive ability earn annual salaries within a few hundred dollars of each other. On the other hand, the evidence presented in this chapter should give those who write about ethnic inequalities reason to avoid flamboyant rhetoric about ethnic oppression. Racial and ethnic differences in this country are seen in a different light when cognitive ability is added to the equation. Awareness of these complex relationships is an essential first step in our everlasting attempt to create an equitable America. Comment: This chapter will be a difficult pill to swallow for liberal academics who believe, despite all evidence to the contrary, that we are all born equal except, of course, for obvious differences such as skin color and athletic ability. The refusal of the genetic inheritance deniers to accept the fact that a large part of our innate intelligence is inherited from our parents has led to a much of the social unrest in America since the inception of Johnson's great society political blunders in the 1960s. These programs including school bussing, affirmative action and head start, to name only three of the worst offenders, have been a total waste of time and money. In fact, they have destroyed the black family, increased the rate of poverty, crime and illegitimacy while bankrupting the country. As my mother used to say "you can't make a silk purse out of a sows ear, no matter how hard you might try."