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Affirmative Action, Mismatch, and Economic Mobility After California’s Proposition 209

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  • Bleemer, Zachary

Abstract

Proposition 209 banned race-based affirmative action at California public universities in 1998. Using a difference-in-differences research design and a newly constructed longitudinal database linking all 1994–2002 University of California applicants to their educational experiences and wages, I show that ending affirmative action caused underrepresented minority (URM) freshman applicants to cascade into lower-quality colleges. The “mismatch hypothesis” implies that this cascade would provide net educational benefits to URM applicants, but their degree attainment declined overall and in STEM fields, especially among less academically qualified applicants. URM applicants’ average wages in their twenties and thirties subsequently declined, driven by declines among Hispanic applicants. These declines are not explained by URM students' performance or persistence in STEM course sequences, which were unchanged after Prop 209. Ending affirmative action also deterred thousands of qualified URM students from applying to any UC campus. Complementary regression discontinuity and institutional value-added analyses suggest that affirmative action’s net educational and wage benefits for URM applicants exceed its net costs for on-the-margin white and Asian applicants.
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  • Bleemer, Zachary, 2020. "Affirmative Action, Mismatch, and Economic Mobility After California’s Proposition 209," University of California at Berkeley, Center for Studies in Higher Education qt2w21n06w, Center for Studies in Higher Education, UC Berkeley.
    • Handle: RePEc:cdl:cshedu:qt2w21n06w
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    2. Zachary Bleemer, 2024. "Comment on "Distance to Opportunity: Higher Education Deserts and College Enrollment Choices"," NBER Chapters, in: Financing Institutions of Higher Education, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Oliveira, Rodrigo & Motté, Henrique & Santos, Alei, 2023. "Do disadvantaged students benefit from attending classes with more skilled colleagues? Evidence from a top university in Brazil," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    4. Bleemer, Zachary, 2023. "Affirmative action and its race-neutral alternatives," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 220(C).
    5. Cecilia Machado & Germán Reyes & Evan Riehl, 2023. "The Efficacy of Large-Scale Affirmative Action at Elite Universities," CEDLAS, Working Papers 0311, CEDLAS, Universidad Nacional de La Plata.
    6. Oliveira, Rodrigo & Santos, Alei & Severnini, Edson R., 2023. "Bridging the Gap: Mismatch Effects and Catch-up Dynamics in a Brazilian College Affirmative Action," IZA Discussion Papers 16239, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Francisca M. Antman & Brian Duncan & Stephen J. Trejo, 2023. "Hispanic Americans in the Labor Market: Patterns over Time and across Generations," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 37(1), pages 169-198, Winter.
    8. Murphy, Richard J. & Silva, Pedro Luís, 2024. "Keeping It in the Family: Student to Degree Match," IZA Discussion Papers 16931, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Rothstein, Jesse, 2022. "Qualitative information in undergraduate admissions: A pilot study of letters of recommendation," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    10. Gautam Bose & Arghya Ghosh, 2022. "Affirmative Action, Equal Opportunity, or just tax the rich? Development, efficiency, and the pursuit of equity," Discussion Papers 2022-02, School of Economics, The University of New South Wales.
    11. Allende, Claudio & Luksic, Juan Diego & Navarrete H, Nicolas, 2024. "Better together? Student's benefits of educational market integration," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).
    12. Oliveira, Rodrigo & Santos, Alei & Severnini, Edson, 2024. "Bridging the gap: Mismatch effects and catch-up dynamics under a Brazilian college affirmative action program," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    13. Cecilia Machado & Germ'an Reyes & Evan Riehl, 2023. "The Direct and Spillover Effects of Large-scale Affirmative Action at an Elite Brazilian University," Papers 2305.02513, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2023.
    14. Brendan O'Flaherty & Rajiv Sethi & Morgan Williams, 2024. "The nature, detection, and avoidance of harmful discrimination in criminal justice," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 43(1), pages 289-320, January.
    15. Estela B. Diaz & Jennifer Lee, 2020. "Cultural Heterogeneity and the Diverse Success Frames of Second-Generation Mexicans," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 9(12), pages 1-21, November.
    16. Bas Scheer & Brinn Hekkelman & Mark Kattenberg, 2024. "The Costs of Affirmative Action: Evidence from a Medical School Lottery," CPB Discussion Paper 455, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    17. Peter Hinrichs, 2024. "How Much Can Families Afford to Pay for College?," NBER Chapters, in: Financing Institutions of Higher Education, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Ghazala Azmat & Jack Britton, 2024. "Labour Market Returns to Higher Education," Post-Print hal-04709561, HAL.

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