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America's top earners are Asian men
- okket 10y agoPlease change the clickbait title to "Asians are the top earners in USA now" or something.
- StavrosK 10y ago"One group you won't believe outearns white men."
- ThomPete 10y agoThat is the title though. We don't normally change titles when they are correct.
- Joof 10y agoThen can we get the post to change the title? The whole thing could be properly summed up in the title.
- IKqDaSojoHFkj3h 10y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html "Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait."
- clamprecht 10y agoAnd sadly it seems like half of the titles these days are linkbait. And this article is from the Washington Post! We aren't even talking about nautilus or one of those sites.
- clamprecht 10y ago"White men hate them!"
- alexc05 10y agoIf you look at the state of the world, with brexit & trump driven in a large part by overt racism, this is, very sadly, more true than just a funny turn on a well known phrase. (The callback of course to "weight loss doctors hate him" or any number of similar headlines)
- steffan 10y ago> ”If you look at the state of the world, with brexit & trump driven in a large part by overt racism“ I think it mischaracterizes both Brexit and Trump's popularity to attribute it to ”overt racism“. 'Overt nationalism' is probably more accurate.
- wrong_variable 10y agoOh boy. Asian Men in america are a anomaly. Its strong selective bias. Open your borders to all of Asia an see what happens.
- sotojuan 10y agoI wonder if they're counting the thousands (tens of thousands? hundreds?) of Asian men who work manual labor or the shipping industry in areas like Manhattan's Chinatown or Brooklyn's Sunset Park. Probably not as they're mostly likely paid under the table, but they'd skew results quite a bit.
- shripadk 10y agoCan you explain how Asian men/women in America are an anomaly? Aren't Asian men/women successful in other countries (including their own) as well?
- tines 10y agoWhen you only allow the already-successful or already-high-IQ people into the selection pool, don't be surprised when you find that your pull is full of successful high-IQ people. This is called selection bias: the Asians in this study have already been filtered by the immigration process while the white people have not, so it's not a random sampling.
- shripadk 10y ago
- Throwaway585250 10y agoSpoiler: Asian males, who have higher IQs and commit less crime than white males, earn more than white males. As no white male on HN has ever worked with an Asian male, this will of course be a total shock to all readers.
- moon_of_moon 10y agoQuit trolling. You know its selection bias.
- Moshe_Silnorin 10y agoIt's pretty well established that East Asians have significantly higher average IQs than Europeans. High IQ predicts low crime rate. Ashkenazi Jews and high-caste Indians are other examples of demographics with much higher IQs on average and also lower crime rate and higher average income. Selective immigration accounts for some of this but is not the whole story.
- moon_of_moon 10y agoCitation?
- alexc05 10y agoI'm sorry, but I've never heard this. Can you provide a source? IQ as a test has been criticized for cultural bias: http://wilderdom.com/personality/intelligenceCulturalBias.html http://wilderdom.com/personality/intelligenceCulturalBias.ht... http://www.theneuroethicsblog.com/2013/09/intelligence-testing-accurate-or.html?m=1 http://www.theneuroethicsblog.com/2013/09/intelligence-testi... Additionally, the very measure of IQ is based around the performance of the mean (where 100 is legged as standard) How can groups be measured across race with a culturally biased test and NOT have the validity of the measure questioned? I've got a lot of trouble believing there are any real studies that would make such a claim as you've made.
- Moshe_Silnorin 10y ago
- meric 10y ago>> All groups trail white men in earnings — except Asian men. They made 117 percent of what white men earned in 2015: Why not just say: >> All groups trail asian men in earnings — They made 117 percent of what white men earned in 2015
- CardenB 10y agoBecause the point of the article is to talk about how white men are in second place according to their metrics?
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- ranit 10y agoYour version provides less information - it does not say that there are no other groups between Asian men and white men on earning scale.
- asenna 10y agoOut of curiosity, by Asian males, do they also include Indian men? It drives me crazy why Indians and people from other nationalities from the subcontinent do not get counted as "asians" in the US.
- RealGeek 10y agoNot sure if this includes Indian-American statistics, but Indian-Americans are the highest income group in US https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_United_States_by_household_income#By_ancestry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_U...
- brownbat 10y agoInteresting... subcontinent is definitely part of Asia, but I would have expected criticism the other direction, that "Asian" lumps together too many really distinct groups, not concern that it was not inclusive enough. Hmong households have slightly lower median incomes than the total US population, for instance.[0] [0] http://www.hndinc.org/cmsAdmin/uploads/dlc/HND-Census-Report-2013.pdf http://www.hndinc.org/cmsAdmin/uploads/dlc/HND-Census-Report...
- zo1 10y ago>"that "Asian" lumps together too many really distinct groups" So does white/caucasian, and probably all the other race "colors" as well. I.e. They lump together many different geographically-isolated/defined peoples and cultures into one singular entity for simplicity. And then we're led to believe statistics that are somehow indicative of something regarding that "race".
- alexc05 10y agoIndia is counted as Asian: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/05/11/the-challenges-of-polling-asian-americans/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/05/11/the-challeng...
- zo1 10y agoWhat about Russians, do you consider them asian? The thing is, short of ridiculously complicated, formalized definitions of all races, sub-races, and combinations you're going to have weirdness and misunderstandings. To most people, asian means China/Japan, and/or the accompanying facial-features that are predominant in those areas. Are all people from Africa black? No, of course not. Are all people from America/Europe white? No, of course not. So then, why do you want to define the "race" Asian using geography? When all others are based on skin-color/culture/identiy, for lack of a better way of simply-defining it. At this point, I'm half-expecting someone to correct me about my definition/description of races. Or perhaps be told about some sort of already-formalized, government-endorsed definition of one of the races above that I got wrong.
- Red_Tarsius 10y agoFrom now on, I'm going to downvote any article that exploits shallow politics and clikbait titles. If the writer thinks his work needs such tricks to gain attention, it's not worth reading. The article itself is very shallow, and compares people by skin color AND home continent. Apples and oranges. Except, 'Asian' is a whole casket of different fruits.
- infosample 10y ago> 'Asian' is a whole casket of different fruits White isn't? Edit: ""White" refers to a person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East or North Africa. It includes people who indicated their race(s) as "White" or reported entries such as Irish, German, Italian, Lebanese, Arab, Moroccan or Caucasian." "many of the ethnic groups classified as white by the U.S. Census, such as Jewish-Americans, Arab-Americans, and Hispanics or Latinos" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Americans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Americans
- fiatjaf 10y ago> 'Asian' is a whole casket of different fruits Black isn't? Latin isn't? Women isn't?
- xyzzy4 10y agoDo they even out-earn people of Jewish descent? Honest question. I thought 10% of billionaires are Jewish, or something like that.
- wallace_f 10y agoThe gap b/w Asian men and white men is the same as the gap b/w white men and white women. Clearly the only explanation for this is institutionalized racism, gender bias and bigotry. Could you imagine affirmitive action covering white men to close the gap?
- danso 10y agoIIRC, The UC system has changed its admissions policies in a way that reduces the proportion of admissions based on the metrics that Asians do most well on: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/30393117/ns/us_news-life/t/asian-americans-blast-uc-admissions-policy/ http://www.nbcnews.com/id/30393117/ns/us_news-life/t/asian-a... A few decades ago, UC schools were investigated for allegedly being biased against Asians in admissions: http://articles.latimes.com/1988-11-18/news/mn-452_1_uc-berkeley http://articles.latimes.com/1988-11-18/news/mn-452_1_uc-berk...
- Dr_tldr 10y agoIn practice, many parts of the rhetoric of "diversity" and "inclusion" end up using the same tactics as the jewish quotas that were implemented a hundred years ago in the name of white supremacy. Resentment and discrimination towards a successful minority is nothing new, only now the resentment is in the name of a rainbow coalition rather than just white people from western europe.
- dba7dba 10y agoSame thing happening at Ivy League schools. I believe there is a class action lawsuit in progress now.
- venomsnake 10y agoAnd suddenly 85% of the content of left leaning blogs and media is outdated :) On a more serious note - lumping coastal white males and mid-country ones into a single group, while it is obvious that it is a bi-modal distribution is not properly conducted statistics. It will be interesting to see white v asian male showdown by geographic areas and professions - and then you can claim outearning.
- la6470 10y agoNow where are the esteemed HN moderators?? Why are you not killing a article based on obviously racist tones??? FU HN moderators.
- RealGeek 10y agoAsian immigrants are the top earners because they come from the top talent pool in their home countries. If you are in India or China, you can not just board a plane to US. The best way to immigrate to US is to perform well in STEM education, then go to US for higher studies. Since it is difficult for them to get a US visa, most of the people who are able to go through the whole process are usually the top performers who work very hard.
- confluence 10y agoExactly this. It's simply selection bias. There is no filter for earning a citizenship at birth, but there is one when you immigrate. So in America (or any nation) you will end up with a relatively average (native born) population, with disparities in earnings accounted for by the relative economic strength by historical accident of the racial/gender groups, who themselves are effectively in competition with the top 1% of foreign countries (since those are the only ones given the opportunity to migrate). Thus you have the results seen above.
- shripadk 10y agoI don't understand this "selection bias" argument at all. How is it that in all other countries in the World with a significant minority Asian population do Asians always top the rest with respect to earning? I'm sure not all countries in the World have as strict an immigration policy as the USA.
- vivekd 10y agoI think on top of immigration polices, there is also a natural selective process imposed on Asian immigration just through sheer logistics. For example, through having the financial means to go to a different country. The average income in China is about 7 000 USD - which means that the average Chinese individual would have to save up roughly half their yearly income to come to the states. Then on top of that, a person with money needs to have the entrepreneurial and pioneer spirit to leave their home country and go somewhere totally new. That isn't normal. Perhaps that isn't so much the case today, but in the mid 80s around the time my parents came here no one in their family were here and it was very rare to see someone from our racial background. Something about just leaving your home and taking a huge gamble in flying across the ocean in search of a better life, that seems to show the ability to dream of a better life and sacrifice in search of it, which is by no means common. My dad told me that in leaving Sri Lanka, he took the student visa route which involved writing some exam (probably the GRE but I never got the specifics). Anyways, did terribly on the exam a few times and then kept paying to take it over. He also spent hundreds on application fees to foreign universities. He told me that during this time, a bunch of people from his village in Sri Lanka would be sitting around laughing at him for all his failures and wasted effort. I think what the shows is that the desire to emigrate was no only difficult but at the time was by no means normal. It wasn't everyone who was putting in the gargantuan effort to escape Sri Lanka (of course this was before the civil war got really bad so the situation likely changed as the 80s wore on.) I think these factors also contribute to economic sucess.
- GreaterFool 10y agoIt would be interesting to see the geographic distribution of Asian population in US. I assume that there aren't that many people of Asian descent in US and I'd expect they're mostly located in big cities. That would certainly affect the median income.
- jgalt212 10y agoKeep this up and the villains on Lifetime will be Asian men instead of white men.
- gyc 10y agoYeah but that would involve being willing to cast Asian men in leading roles and romantic interests on TV and in movies.
- lycidas 10y agoDespite the lack of content in the article, this post seems have to attracted a few comments. Before everyone comes in here with explanations of "oh it is because Asians work harder, are smarter, and have better culture" argument - thus not only further propagating the harmful model minority stereotype but also implying that certain other races aren't as smart or don't have 'good' culture - I'd like to propose it is simply because of socioeconomic status and selection effect. Your adult income levels is heavily correlated to the socioeconomic status of the family you grew up in. Asian Americans have the highest average family income out of any major immigrant groups because Asia is a huge place with many wealthy and educated citizens who then decide to immigrate over to America. The selection effect comes from the fact that the people who do immigrate from Asia are usually either wealthy or well educated or both, because the lack of these factors prevent poorer families from doing so. These families then have higher than average socioeconomic status and their children go on to become well educated and get better paying jobs (1). As for why Asian Men are specifically higher earning, we still live in a non post gender world. For an example of institutionalized sexism in tech I would recommend this recent documentary that just came out (2). As a last point, income isn't everything. Asian Americans, though facing less severe issues than other minority groups in America, still have to deal with everyday issues such as the model minority stereotype or with being perceived as the perpetual foreigner. (1) Education and Immigration - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0745648320 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0745648320. This is a great read about how basically everything people associate with immigrants comes down to socioeconomic status. (2) http://www.codedocumentary.com/ http://www.codedocumentary.com/ - Documentary about females and minorities or lack thereof in tech.
- omonra 10y agoI'm afraid the 'asians are smarter, work harder and have better culture' makes a whole lot more sense. Let's leave US and look at Asia instead - compare performance of Japan/Korea/Taiwan (can also through in Singapore and HK) and more recently China to other countries (Indonesia/Philippines/Malaysia/Thailand etc) post WW2. They all started out dirt poor yet some countries have made tremendous progress while others are still pretty undeveloped.
- samfisher83 10y agoIf you want break it down further Indian American's are the highest earning group in America. Probably because so Indian American especially 2nd generation one are doctors, dentists, etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_United_States_by_household_income https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_U...
- danso 10y agoAs others have pointed out, Asians in America benefit from a sort of selection bias, if you're looking at East Asians whose families immigrated as doctors/academics/etc. Other Asian groups don't benefit as much, AFAIK. My own family came over as war refugees, which is a sort of survivor bias but not the same...it took me awhile to figure out why none of us kids were particularly great at school growing up.