Ethnicity and Inequality in Hawai'i

3 Socioeconomic Inequality and Ethnicity

3 Socioeconomic Inequality and Ethnicity his chapter is concerned with determining the relation between socioeconomic status and ethnicity in Hawai‘i; that is, ascertaining the significance of ethnicity as an organizing principle in the allocation of socioeconomic status. I review 2000 U.S. census data on occupational status and income level as objective indicators of socioeconomic status of eight major ethnic groups in Hawai‘i. These groups include African Americans, Chinese Americans, Filipino Americans, Native Hawaiians, Japanese Americans, Korean Americans, Samoans, and Whites. I argue that considered together, occupational status, income level, and educational achievement (also viewed as an indicator of socioeconomic status ; see Chapter 4) demonstrate the institutionalized scope and nature of ethnic inequality in Hawai‘i. This chapter also discusses the results from my ongoing longitudinal study of ethnic stratification in island society based on U.S. census data since 1970 that clearly establish the lack of collective social mobility among ethnic minorities since that decade and thus the persistence of ethnic inequality. As noted in Chapter 2, the U.S. Census Bureau initiated a major change in 2000 by allowing respondents for the first time to indicate membership in more than one racial category. This change has significant implications for the comparability of data from previous censuses to those in 2000, since the number of federally recognized racial categories has increased exponentially from four to sixty-three, including various combiT nations of those four major racial groups.1 For this chapter on ethnic stratification , I have chosen to use the census data tabulated for ethnic or racial “group alone or in combination with one or more other races.” The alternative is to use the census data for “group alone,” meaning information from respondents who claimed membership in only one racial or ethnic category. The primary disadvantage of using those data is that they exclude the substantial proportion of Hawai‘i residents (21.4 percent) who are multiracial and who were included in previous census surveys because they had no choice but to indicate belonging to only one ethnic or racial group. Admittedly, there are also disadvantages in using the ethnic or racial group alone or in combination data that are primarily due to multiple counting. A census respondent who indicated that she is Korean American and White has her, for example, income data, tabulated twice, once as a Korean American (with“unmixed”Koreans) in combination with being White, and once as a White (with “unmixed” Whites) in combination with being Korean American. I have decided to use the group alone or in combination data because they are more inclusive in scope and do not exclude from consideration a large number of Hawai‘i residents. In strict terms, the 2000 census results for racial and ethnic groups are not directly comparable to those from previous censuses because the procedures for claiming group membership have changed. Thus, it would not be valid to compare, for example, the occupational status of a given ethnic group in 2000 with that in 1990 and state that the group had “increased” or “decreased” its status. However, with regard to the overall occupational ranking of ethnic groups, a valid comparison can be made between the relative position in 2000 of a group with its relative rank in previous decades. For example, a group could be said to hold a subordinate status in relation to the other ethnic groups in 2000 as it did in 1990. The following sections discuss and compare the occupational status and median income of eight major ethnic groups in Hawai‘i toward an analysis of the salience of ethnicity as a regulating principle of the socioeconomic status system. I argue that the stratification order is “racialized” and that ethnicity structures the highly unequal distribution of socioeconomic benefits and rewards among island ethnic groups. Occupational Status Table 3.1 presents 2000 census data on the distribution by gender of the seven major occupational categories used by the U.S. Census Bureau within each of the eight major ethnic groups in Hawai‘i.2 The upper three categories consist of white-collar occupations, while the lower four groupings include bluecollar jobs that generally provide less in wages and benefits to workers and involve less-desirable working conditions, although not necessarily in all cases. Socioeconomic Inequality and Ethnicity / 43 TABLE 3.1 OCCUPATIONAL DISTRIBUTION WITHIN ETHNIC GROUPS IN HAWAI‘I, 2000 (PERCENT) African Chinese...