CROSS-NATIONAL COMPARISONS OF RACIAL AND ETHNIC ECONOMIC INEQUALITY † Racial and Ethnic Economic Inequality: The International Record By WILLIAM DARITY,JR. AND JESSICA GORDON NEMBHARD* Undertaking a comparative inquiry across di- verse countries enables us to isolate previously unremarked consistencies and to refute several pieces of conventional wisdom about the nature of intergroup disparity. We find that economic disparity correlated with race and ethnicity is present and looks remarkably similar across a wide range of nations. Enduring employment discrimination against comparatively marginal- ized groups is universal. Higher rates of eco- nomic growth do not correspond neatly with reduced intergroup disparity across the coun- tries. In addition, subaltern groups frequently are numerical minorities, but in some cases, they constitute a majority or plurality of the population. Our working paper (see Darity and Nemb- hard, 2000) identifies 12 countries where we could find data of a reasonable quality that measure the gap between economically subal- tern and dominant groups: Australia, Belize, Brazil, Canada, India, Israel, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, South Africa, Trinidad and To- bago, and the United States. As our data dem- onstrate, pronounced intergroup inequality occurs in countries with both large populations (India, United States, Brazil, and Japan) and small populations (Belize, Trinidad and To- bago, Israel, and New Zealand). It occurs in higher-income countries (Australia, Canada, Ja- pan, and the United States), as well as in lower- income countries (India, Belize, and South Africa); and in countries with high growth rates (Malaysia, Japan, Belize, and India), as well as in countries with low or negative growth rates (South Africa and New Zealand). Finally, pro- nounced intergroup inequality is apparent in countries with high levels of general inequality (Brazil, South Africa, and Malaysia), as well as in countries with low levels of general inequal- ity (Canada, India, Australia, and Israel) (World Bank, 2000). Here, we provide summary statis- tics on the relative income or earnings status of the subaltern groups relative to the dominant group or relative to a national average for five of the countries: Malaysia, India, Belize, New Zealand, and South Africa. I. Malaysia Malaysia had the highest rate of growth for the 12 countries under study between 1975 and 1994, 4.6 percent. Malay/Chinese monthly in- come ratios for males range from 0.46 in 1957– 1958 to a high of 0.57 in 1984 (the lowest ratio was 0.44 in 1970). Indian/Chinese ratios ranged from 0.80 in 1957–1958 to 0.81 in 1984 (lowest in 1967–1968, at 0.74) (see Jomo Sundaram and Ishak Shari, 1985; Faridah Jamaludin, 1998). The first phase of Malaysian affirmative ac- tion directed specifically at the native Malay or bumi spanned the period 1971–1990, under the New Economic Policy (NEP). The 1984 statis- tics suggest that the combination of rapid growth and the NEP improved the comparative economic status of the bumi. However, data from retrospective work histories available in the Second Malaysian Family Life Survey (MFLS2) completed in 1989 indicate the oppo- site pattern: a widening gap in male earnings, with Malay men falling sharply behind Chinese men and slightly behind Indian men (John Luke † Discussants: Samuel Myers, Jr., University of Minne- sota; Rhonda Williams, University of Maryland; Kevin Lang, Boston University. * Darity: Department of Economics, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3305, and Duke Univer- sity; Nembhard: Institute for Urban Research, Morgan State University, Baltimore, MD 21251. 308