CHINESE–FILIPINO WAGE DIFFERENTIALS IN EARLY-TWENTIETH-CENTURY MANILA

Abstract

Racial or ethnic wage differentials are common in labor markets composed of easily identifiable groups. This article analyzes a rare source of historical wage data for nonwhite populations. An American labor-market survey of Manila in 1900 revealed that average Chinese wages were about a third higher than Filipino wages. This differential appears to have been in large part an overtime premium that compensated Chinese for their longer workdays; partly it reflected Chinese segregation into higher-paying industries. It is, by contrast, very hard to identify any pure ethnic wage premium. V ariation in wages according to race or ethnicity is a well-known characteristic of many labor markets. Historical evidence of such differentials is most plentiful in cases where Europeans or their descendants were one of the groups; studies of wage gaps between groups of non-Europeans are few indeed. This article examines historical evidence of wage differentials between Chinese sojourners and local workers in artisanal shops and manufactories in Manila at the turn of the twentieth century. Average wage premia accruing to workers of a particular ethnicity are often interpreted as evidence that the high-wage ethnic group has somehow gained unfairly at the expense of the low-wage group. The case of the Chinese in Manila, however, indicates that longer hours on the job and selection into higher-paying industries were more important considerations. These characteristics of the Manila Chinese reflected an efficient sojourning strategy, whereby Chinese came to the Philippines specifically to work and save for their eventual return home.