The universal gradient which shows those of East Asian heritage at one end and black people at the other
Whether we are considering academic achievement or annual income, ethnicity plays a vital role in predicting outcomes
SIMON WEBB
FEB 17

One of those things which is often observed, but seldom remarked upon, is the gradient which has people of East Asian ancestry at one end and those whose heritage lies in sub-Saharan Africa at the other. Those of us whose families have their origin in Europe, fall, as a rule between those two extremes. So universal is this phenomenon, that we tend to take it as a given, rather like background radiation. Perhaps it is for this reason that we don’t speak about it out loud, because we just know that it is so, and accept it as a brute fact. I am less concerned for now with delving into the causes of this matter, that is to say why it should be so, than with establishing that it is so. To take one, very noticeable and obvious example, let us think about academic achievement in Britain and the United States at about the age of eighteen. In Britain, looking at those students who get at least three A levels at above at grade A, we find that more than 42% of Chinese students at British schools achieve this, but just 16% of black students. Thus, Chinese teenagers are almost three times as likely to achieve this academic target. As is commonly observed also, white students lie between these extremes, with 26% getting those three good A levels. The picture is similar in America with the results of the SAT, which is used in university admissions, with those of Asian ancestry at the top, African-American at the bottom and white students somewhere in the middle...