Department of Sociology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
Demography. 2013 Aug;50(4):1177-95. doi: 10.1007/s13524-012-0190-0.
In the United States, racial disparities in wealth are vast, yet their causes are only partially understood. In Being Black, Living in the Red, Conley (1999) argued that the sociodemographic traits of young blacks and their parents, particularly parental wealth, wholly explain their wealth disadvantage. Using data from the 1980-2009 waves of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, I show that this conclusion hinges on the specific sample considered and the treatment of debtors in the sample. I further document that prior research has paid insufficient attention to the possibility of variation in the association between wealth and race at different points of the net worth distribution. Among wealth holders, blacks remain significantly disadvantaged in assets compared with otherwise similar whites. Among debtors, however, young whites hold more debt than otherwise similar blacks. The results suggest that, among young adults, debt may reflect increased access to credit, not simply the absence of assets. The asset disadvantage for black net wealth holders also indicates that research and policy attention should not be focused only on young blacks "living in the red."
在美国，财富方面的种族差异巨大，但造成这种差异的原因人们只是部分了解。在《身为黑人，生活在红色之中》一书中，康利（1999 年）认为，年轻黑人和他们父母的社会人口特征，尤其是父母的财富，完全可以解释他们在财富方面的劣势。我利用收入动态面板研究在 1980 年至 2009 年期间的数据进行了研究，结果表明，这一结论取决于所考虑的具体样本以及样本中债务人的处理方式。我进一步证明，先前的研究没有充分注意到在净资产分布的不同点上，财富与种族之间的关联可能存在变化。在财富持有者中，与其他方面相似的白人相比，黑人的资产仍然明显处于劣势。然而，在债务人中，年轻的白人比其他方面相似的黑人拥有更多的债务。结果表明，在年轻人中，债务可能反映了获得信贷的增加，而不仅仅是资产的缺乏。黑人净资产持有者的资产劣势也表明，研究和政策关注不应仅集中在“生活在红色之中”的年轻黑人身上。
