Publication Type: Paper/Poster Proposal
Abstract: It is a well-established fact that different racial/ethnic groups within the United States have different levels of accomplishment in attaining professional success and high socio-economic status (SES). Indeed, this is one of the primary reasons for measuring race/ethnicity on surveys. However, the current reporting practice of combining all persons who indicate Hispanic ethnicity into the same racial/ethnic category on federal surveys may well be masking the important influence of race on attainment within the Hispanic ethnic group. Using the data from the Survey of Earned Doctorates and Survey of Doctorate Recipients we examine the unique relationship between race and professional and SES outcomes (i.e., salary, professional advancement, professional productivity, and professional and overall satisfaction) in a sample of highly educated U.S. citizen scientists and engineers.

We hypothesize that the effect of race within the Hispanic ethnicity will closely match the effect of race on the larger population. That is, there will be an interaction between Hispanic ethnicity and race such that highly educated Hispanics, overall, will show diminished levels of professional and social attainment relative to their non-Hispanic White counterparts and within the Hispanic ethnicity Whites will show higher levels of attainment than their non-White counterparts. Implications of these findings on racial/ethnic reporting, sample design and the societal context in which these results occur will be discussed.