

Sounding black hurts your income; so does sounding southern - emmett
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/07/how-much-does-it-cost-you-in-wages-if-you-sound-black/

======
cperciva
Accents are shaped by environment.

In my case, people often tell me that I have a very clear British accent; but
when I ask them to pin down what sounds so particularly British, I often
flounder about and eventually answer along the lines of "well, you speak very
precisely and in a very educated manner" -- which says something about our (or
at least, Canadians') stereotypes about the British!

In light of this, I wonder to what extent the judgements made about whether
people "sounded black" or "sounded southern" were in fact merely that people
were picking up voices which sounded uneducated -- and having subconscious
racism translate that into a sense of blackness or southernness.

~~~
byrneseyeview
I think "British accent" can be a placeholder for "Big words in complete
sentences." When I lived in Texas, people asked if I was British -- I'm from
the Midwest.

~~~
pchristensen
What I love is in any movie not set in America, people speak in an English
accent because it's foreign. Doesn't matter if it's France or Outer Space, it
sounds English.

------
utnick
After browsing the paper... it seems his sample was 300 random kids 19-25
average age 22, the avg income in the study was 11$ an hour...and the
difference in wage from sounding black to not sounding black was 8%... unless
I am missing something this study sounds very meaningless due to the small
sample size of the subgroups of the sample, and the pointlessness of comparing
22 year old wages.

~~~
pchristensen
8% of $11 meaning that you make $0.88 less an hour? Wow, earth shattering.

~~~
hugh
When you're only making $10.12 an hour, it probably is.

------
fallentimes
For better or worse, I think sounding "anything that could be perceived as
uneducated" hurts your income. This could include any type of accent (Boston,
Southern, Indian), which leads to pronouncing words wrong (e.g Wata vs Water,
Y'all vs You all).

~~~
nonrecursive
My last name is "Higginbotham", I have a very slight Southern accent and say
"y'all", and I look very Asian because I'm half Vietnamese. Most of the people
I do work for I never see in person, but it's often amusing when I do meet
them.

~~~
schtog
Higginbotham is an awesome name!

------
turnstile
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-dHl0c9S98>

