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CHINESE–FILIPINO WAGE DIFFERENTIALS IN EARLY-TWENTIETH-CENTURY MANILA
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 October 2002
Abstract
Racial or ethnic wage differentials are common in labor markets composed of easily identifiable groups. This article analyzes a rare source of historical wage data for nonwhite populations. An American labor-market survey of Manila in 1900 revealed that average Chinese wages were about a third higher than Filipino wages. This differential appears to have been in large part an overtime premium that compensated Chinese for their longer workdays; partly it reflected Chinese segregation into higher-paying industries. It is, by contrast, very hard to identify any “pure” ethnic wage premium.
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- © 2002 The Economic History Association
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