Study Finds Skin-Tone Prejudice Against Darker-Skinned Legal Immigrants

FoxNews.com has word about a disturbing study that establishes that lighter-skinned legal immigrants are more likely to earn more money in the United States than darker-skinned ones:

Light-skinned immigrants in the United States make more money on average than those with darker complexions, and the chief reason appears to be discrimination, a researcher says.

Joni Hersch, a law and economics professor at Vanderbilt University, looked at a government survey of 2,084 legal immigrants to the United States from around the world and found that those with the lightest skin earned an average of 8 percent to 15 percent more than similar immigrants with much darker skin.

"On average, being one shade lighter has about the same effect as having an additional year of education," Hersch said.

These  findings lend support to the view that there is a skin-tone prejudice in this country that goes beyond race.  Or as another commentator in the article puts it: a "preference for whiteness" in America.

Such findings should provide further fodder for implicit bias in the workplace theorists.

PS