Colorism and African American Wealth: Evidence from the Nineteenth-Century South

36 Pages Posted: 26 Jan 2006 Last revised: 24 Jul 2022

See all articles by Howard Bodenhorn

Howard Bodenhorn

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); John E. Walker Department of Economics, Clemson University

Christopher S. Ruebeck

Lafayette College - Department of Economics

Date Written: November 2005

Abstract

Black is not always black. Subtle distinctions in skin tone translate into significant differences in outcomes. Data on more than 15,000 households interviewed during the 1860 federal census exhibit sharp differences in wealth holdings between white, mulatto, and black households in the urban South. We document these differences, investigate the relationships between wealth and the recorded household characteristics, and decompose the wealth gaps into treatment and characteristic effects. In addition to higher wealth holdings of white households as compared to free African-Americans in general, there are distinct differences between both the characteristics of and wealth of free mulatto and black households, whether male- or female-headed. While black-headed households' mean predicted log wealth was only 20% of white-headed households', mulatto-headed households' was nearly 50% that of whites'. The difference between light- and dark-complexion is highly significant in semi-log wealth regressions. In the decomposition of this wealth differential, treatment effects play a large role in explaining the wealth gap between all subpopulation pairs.

Suggested Citation

Bodenhorn, Howard and Ruebeck, Christopher S., Colorism and African American Wealth: Evidence from the Nineteenth-Century South (November 2005). NBER Working Paper No. w11732, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=842467

Howard Bodenhorn (Contact Author)

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

John E. Walker Department of Economics, Clemson University ( email )

Clemson, SC 29631
United States

Christopher S. Ruebeck

Lafayette College - Department of Economics ( email )

Easton, PA
United States

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