Racial Disparities in Individual Earning Profiles: Recent Cohort Trends in the U.S.

Lingxin Hao, Johns Hopkins University

Period trends of racial disparities in earnings have been studied using repeated cross-sectional data. A better characterization of disparity trends is based on individual earning profiles. Bringing social stratification theories in the life course framework, this paper takes advantage of uninterrupted individual earning profiles of respondents from seven panels of the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) Gold Standard Complete Data that merged in IRS individual payroll tax information. We analyze ages 26-35 profiles of individuals born in 1952-1970, who are grouped into three broad birth cohorts. Using multilevel growth curve models with random initial state and random quadratic age functions, we examine whether racial disparities in individual earning profiles over ages 26-35 have declined, stalled or increased across the three cohorts for men and women separately. Substantive and methodological differences between cohort trends based on individual profiles and period trends based on cross-sectional data are discussed.