Abstract Fourteen 2000

GLOBAL

DEVELOPMENT STUDIES

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Volume Two Winter 1999-Spring 2000 Numbers 1-2.

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THEME: CARIBBEAN DEVELOPMENT STRATEGIES: ISSUES AND OPTIONS

THE BLACK MALE IN THE CARIBBEAN: AN ANALYTICAL PERSPECTIVE

Addington Coppin

School of Business Administration

Oakland University

Rochester, MI, 48309

Published online: December 15, 2016

ABSTRACT

The issue of the marginalization of the black male has recently been quite topical in the academic and popular literature on the Caribbean. This article employs data for working men of African and mixed ethnicities from one Caribbean society to investigate the extent to which aspects of this marginalization argument can be discerned. Focusing primarily on demographic, human capital and labor market variables, the study finds earnings differentials favoring men of mixed ethnicity to be explained mainly by different endowments of the characteristics they possess. This, however, proves to be more likely among older than among younger cohorts. Several important differences in outcomes across these two ethnic groupings also point to the possibility of differential behaviors in their public and private lives. If such differential outcomes across the two ethnic groupings are correlated with average differences in social class ranking, while the region's old ascriptive social order might eventually disappear it has not done so yet.