White College Graduates Research Articles

Association between Proximity to Food Sources and Dietary Behaviors in Black and White College Graduates.

Unequal access to healthy food environments is often implicated in racial inequities in health and behaviors that are largest among college graduates. The aim of this study was to determine associations between perceived proximity to food sources and dietary behaviors between black and white college graduates. In a cross-sectional online survey of dietary behaviors between black and white adults who have a ≥ 4-year bachelor's degree, respondents were asked how long it typically takes for them to get to grocery stores and fast-food restaurants from home. We used ordinal logit regression models to assess associations between perceived proximity to food sources and dietary behaviors. Among black men, perceiving that a grocery store was ≥ 10 minutes from their home was associated with lower fruit consumption (beta=-0.94, SE=0.48). Perceiving that a grocery store was ≥ 10 minutes from their home was associated with more frequent fast-food consumption among black men (beta=1.21, SE=0.39), Black women (beta=0.98, SE=0.34), and white men (beta=0.74, SE=0.30). The associations between perceived proximity to food sources and dietary behaviors differ by race and sex among college graduates with important implications for racial disparities in diet quality and obesity across SES.

Familial Financial Assistance and Body Mass Index in Black College Graduates.

Racial disparities in obesity are larger between Black and White college graduates compared to disparities among those who did not complete high school. A possible explanation is that Black adults with higher socioeconomic status (SES) experience unique obesogenic determinants. Black adults who have completed a 4-year college degree can report "uplift stress" from providing financial assistance to family members. The aim of this study is to determine whether the association between familial financial assistance and body mass index (BMI) varies among college-educated Black women and men. This study utilized data from an online survey of Qualtrics standing panels including 451 non-Hispanic Black college graduates. Respondents were asked if they had provided or received any monetary gift or financial help from a family member in the past 12months as well as their height and weight. Using linear regression and multiplicative interaction terms, the association between familial financial assistance and BMI was assessed by sex. Those who reported both giving and receiving familial financial assistance had higher BMI than those who neither gave nor received assistance (β = 2.80, standard error (s.e.) = 1.16). There was a significant interaction such that this association was observed among women only (β = 6.67, s.e. = 2.32). Future studies should seek to understand the gendered impact of familial financial assistance on BMI in college-educated Black women.

Racial Non-equivalence of Socioeconomic Status and Self-rated Health among African Americans and Whites.

Racial health inequities are not fully explained by socioeconomic status (SES) measures like education, income and wealth. The largest inequities are observed among African American and white college graduates suggesting that African Americans do not receive the same health benefits of education. African Americans do not receive the same income and wealth returns of college education as their white counterparts indicating a racial non-equivalence of SES that may affect health inequities. The aim of this study is to determine whether racial non-equivalence of SES mediates race inequities in self-rated health by education and sex. Using data from the 2007–2016 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey in the United States, the mediation of the associations between race and self-rated health through household income ≥400% federal poverty line, homeownership, and investment income were assessed among college graduates and non-college graduates by sex. Indirect associations were observed among college graduate women (odds = 0.08, standard error (s.e.) = 0.03), and non-college graduate men (odds = 0.14, s.e. = 0.02) and women (odds = 0.06, s.e. = 0.02). Direct associations between race and self-rated health remained after accounting for household income and wealth indicators suggesting that race differences in income and wealth partially mediate racial inequities in self-rated health. This study demonstrates that the racial non-equivalence of SES has implications for health inequities, but the magnitude of indirect associations varied by sex. Other factors like discrimination, health pessimism and segregation should be considered in light of the racial non-equivalence of SES and racial inequities in self-rated health.

Understanding Racial/Ethnic Diversity Gaps Among Early Career Teachers

The growing evidence on the importance of teacher representation points to the need to better understand the factors shaping the lack of racial/ethnic diversity in the teacher workforce. In this study, we examine the extent to which college major choice explains racial/ethnic gaps in teaching. Drawing on data from the Baccalaureate and Beyond Longitudinal Study, we find that White college graduates are close to twice as likely to major in education compared to Black, Latinx, and other graduates of color. Even among college graduates, respondents who identify as White are 5 percentage points more likely to enter teaching than respondents who identify as Black and 2 percentage points more likely to enter teaching than graduates who identify as Latinx. Regression and decomposition analyses demonstrate that the observed racial/ethnic gaps in entry to teaching can largely be explained by whether a graduate studied education in college.

Inherited Prospects: The Importance of Financial Transfers for White and Black College‐Educated Households’ Wealth Trajectories

AbstractThe persistent racial wealth gap in the United States continues to grow, reaching an all‐time high in 2016. Throughout much of the discussion and analysis on the racial wealth gap, however, the assumption that higher education can at least narrow the gap has often been left unquestioned. While education is a factor in increasing incomes and wealth, recent research challenges the narrative that education is the key to reducing the racial wealth gap. Our findings provide further support for this growing literature. While black college graduates do have higher wealth than those without college degrees, the wealth gap with white college graduates remains vast, and the inheritances received by white college‐educated households provide a huge boost to wealth that is not available to their black counterparts. Further, we find that black college‐educated households are much more likely to provide financial support for their parents as well as their children, and that black households that do provide support across generations do so with much less net wealth than white households that do not.

Not All Education Is Created Equal: How Choice of Academic Major Affects the Racial Salary Gap

Using 48,403 observations from the National Survey of College Graduates, this article examines the racial salary disparity between Black and White college graduates. We find that academic major and first higher education institution influence one’s final occupation, which in turn affects the salary disparity between Blacks and Whites. We suggest that public policy builds awareness among high school students aspiring for college of the importance of preparing for specific academic majors that lead to occupations expected to maintain an earnings premium.

“Family Achievements?”: How a College Degree Accumulates Wealth for Whites and Not For Blacks

A college education has been linked to higher life-time earnings and better economic achievements, so the expectation would be that it is also linked to higher net wealth for everybody. However, recent analyses challenge this hypothesis and find that the expectation holds true for White college-educated households but not for Black college-educated households. To examine this finding further and investigate the role of family financial transfers in household net wealth, the authors perform a mixed-method study using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics for a 24-year period, 1989-2013, and qualitative data from the Institute on Assets and Social Policy Levering Mobility study. Their results confirm that White college-educated households amass wealth, whereas the wealth of their Black counterparts declines. The authors also estimate the impact of just inheritance or large financial gifts and find that they decrease the existing racial wealth gap by nearly $40,000, or 20 percent. Further analyses demonstrate that White college graduates are significantly and substantially more likely to provide and receive financial support for education and/or a home purchase, while Black college graduates are significantly more likely to financially support their parents. Multivariate regression analysis identifies receipt of financial support for education and a home purchase as a positive contributor to net wealth and financial help for parents as a negative contributor to net wealth, disadvantaging Black college-educated households, who are less likely to receive and more likely to give financial support. Longitudinal interview data collected in the Institute on Assets and Social Policy Leveraging Mobility study illustrate the mechanisms of family financial transfers and their relationship to wealth accumulation, contrasting the White and Black households’ experiences. The discussion underscores the need to better understand intergenerational wealth and wealth sharing within families when studying wealth outcomes and highlights the role of family financial wealth transfers in creating opportunities for those who benefit the most—mostly White college-educated households.

Who Gentrifies Low Income Neighborhoods?

This paper uses confidential Census data, specifically the 1990 and 2000 Census Long-Form data, to study the demographic processes underlying the gentrification of low income urban neighborhoods during the 1990's. In contrast to previous studies, the analysis is conducted at the more refined census-tract level with a narrower definition of gentrification and more narrowly defined comparison neighborhoods. The analysis is also richly disaggregated by demographic characteristic, uncovering differential patterns by race, education, age and family structure that would not have emerged in the more aggregate analysis in previous studies. The results provide little evidence of displacement of low-income non-white households in gentrifying neighborhoods. The bulk of the income gains in gentrifying neighborhoods are attributed to white college graduates and black high school graduates. It is the disproportionate in-migration of the former and the disproportionate retention and income gains of the latter that appear to be the main engines of gentrification.

Books Matter: College-Educated Blacks Now Earn 92 Percent of the Incomes of White College Graduates

Books Matter: College-Educated Blacks Now Earn 92 Percent of the Incomes of White College Graduates

Preterm delivery and low birth weight among first-born infants of black and white college graduates.

Reproductive outcomes were investigated in black and white female college graduates, presumed to be of similar socioeconomic status and similar risk profile with respect to environmental factors. Data were gathered by mail survey from graduates (1973-1985) of four Atlanta, Georgia, colleges between February and June 1988. Of 6,867 alumnae to whom questionnaires were mailed, 3,084 responded. A follow-up study of black nonrespondents yielded responses from 14% (335) of those who did not respond to the mail survey. For all graduates with a first live born at the time of survey (n = 1,089), the rates of preterm delivery, low birth weight, and infant mortality were 80.8, 82.6, and 14.6 per thousand births (primigravida), respectively. Compared with white graduates, black graduates had 1.67 times the risk of preterm delivery and 2.48 times the risk of low birth weight. Measures of social and economic status differed significantly by race. However, adjustment for these variables did not reduce the estimated risk for black graduates compared with whites. Analysis of the nonresponder survey suggested that respondent data alone overestimates the incidence of adverse outcomes in blacks; using nonresponder data, relative risks of 1.28 (preterm delivery) and 1.75 (low birth weight) were calculated as lower limits of the increased risk for blacks.

A view of delayed parenting: some implications of a new trend.

The voluntary postponement of childbearing until after age 30 has become much more common, especially as new opportunities for women have emerged. Little is understood about the psychological impact on parenting and on children of women's reordering of priorities with greater emphasis on work outside the home. The assumption is made and corroborated that older mothers, who have developed competence in the world before childbearing, bring to the mothering experience strengths and shortcomings different from those of their younger counterparts. The same is assumed to be true of fathers. In a study of "on time" and delayed parenting, we found older mothers with established careers to be generally more accepting and less conflicted in the parenting role than were younger professional women. They revealed strengths which were concomitant with their level of maturity and which seemed generally advantageous for their children's development. This study suggests the need for further inquiry into the profound impact on children of parental developmental achievements and indicates that the controversy about working versus nonworking mothers may be of much less importance than an understanding of adult development and its impact on the quality of parenting.

Effects of race and exposure on judgments of interpersonal favorability

Two experiments replicated and extended the “mere exposure” effect across the variables of race, sex, and level of initial favorability. Both experiments employed a between subjects design in which white subjects rated their favorability toward 20 photographs, 10 of black and 10 of white college graduates. The initial exposure sequence was followed by 10 repetitions of each photograph for experimental subjects and an inverted alphabet printing task for control subjects. During the posttest all subjects again rated the photographs. Irrespective of race and sex of photograph or initial level of favorability, exposure functioned to enhance interpersonal attractiveness in both experiments.

The Computerized Construction of a Matched Sample

The use of matched sampling in experimental and nonexperimental research has been frustrated by the problems of attrition and incomplete matching. The amount of attrition and incomplete matching. The amount of attrition of sample size and incomplete matching are shown to be a function of various aspects of the research, including the level of measurement of the matching variables, the sampling situation, the definition of a match, and the means used to construct matches. Several basic and heretofore neglected considerations in the conceptualization of a "match" are discussed. These considerations and a rarallel set of desiderata became apparent during the computerized construction of two matched samples of black and white college graduates. Three approaches to the computerization of matching are described, the last of which-"guaranteed variable caliper matching"- meets the desiderata. We describe our clerical and field procedures from the computerized matching to the final matching based on completed interviews. The degree to which both computer matching and these procedures controlled attition and incomplete matching is assessed. The quality of matches is found to be fairly high and attrition has been virtually elliminated, thus demonstrating the possibilities of our approach.