© The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com. Social Forces 92(4) 1313–1337, June 2014 doi: 10.1093/sf/sou007 Advance Access publication on 4 March 2014 Comments by the anonymous reviewers were very insightful and certainly improved this paper. The author wishes to thank Loïc Wacquant, Mike Hout, Evelyn Nakano Glenn, and Cybelle Fox for their support and feedback. The author also wishes to thank Robert J. Taylor for his assistance with the NSAL. This research was supported by a Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship. Address corre- spondence to Ellis Monk Jr., Department of Sociology, University of Chicago, 1126 East 59th Street, Chicago, IL 60637; Email: emonk@uchicago.edu. Skin Tone Stratification Skin Tone Stratification among Black Americans, 2001–2003 Ellis P. Monk Jr., University of Chicago I n the past few decades, a dedicated collection of scholars have examined the matter of skin tone stratification within the black American population and found that complexion has significant net effects on a variety of stratification outcomes. These analyses relied heavily on data collected between 1950 and 1980. In particular, many scholars have utilized the National Survey of Black Americans (1979–1980). This leaves the question of whether or not the effect of skin tone on stratification outcomes remains decades later. Newly available data from the National Survey of American Life (2001–2003) are used to examine this question. I find that skin tone is significantly associated with black Americans’ educational attainment, household income, occupational status, and even the skin tone and educational attainment of their spouses. Consequently, this study demonstrates that skin tone stratification among black Americans persists into the 21st century. I conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for the study of ethnoracial inequality in the United States and beyond. Introduction An incredibly rich literature expertly details ethnoracial inequality in the United States. In particular, much ink has been spilled recounting the com- plex and enduring history of ethnoracial inequality between white and black Americans. For example, scholars highlight how black Americans face steep penalties in the labor market (Pager 2003), in the criminal justice system (Western 2006), in terms of wealth (Oliver and Shapiro 1995; Conley 2010 [1999]), and in terms of housing and poverty (Massey 2008). In addition to this well-documented inequality between blacks and whites, however, there is considerable intraracial inequality related to skin tone differences within the black population. Evidence shows that skin tone is a significant predictor of Skin Tone Stratification 1313 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/sf/article/92/4/1313/2235835 by guest on 11 October 2022