Abstract
Financialization of the US economy has brought about major historical change in compensation practices. In addition to traditional cash wages, American employers increasingly provide workers with compensation based in part on company stock, and 23 percent of US private-sector employees now receive stock-based compensation. This study is among the first to examine the implications of this shift for Asian Americans’ labor market attainment. Analysis of the General Social Survey (GSS) and the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) shows that Asian Americans, on average, are more likely to receive stock-based compensation than Whites, in part because they are more likely to work in jobs where it is provided. However, the two groups are equally likely to receive stock-based compensation and similar amounts in these jobs.
Research on Asian Americans’ assimilation in the United States focuses on wages as a key indicator of their labor market attainment. However, in recent decades nonwage components of (pecuniary) compensation have grown in prominence (Kristal et al. 2020; Shuey and O’Rand 2004), underscoring the importance of moving beyond the narrow focus on wages for understanding patterns of Asian Americans’ economic incorporation. This study is among the first to examine the shift to stock-based compensation and its implications for Asian Americans’ labor market attainment.
In the course of financialization of the US economy (Krippner 2011; Davis and Kim 2015; Lin and Neely 2020), American employers increasingly provide workers with compensation based in part on company stock (for example, stock grants, stock options). Estimates show that 23 percent of US private-sector workforce, or twenty-nine million Americans, now receive stock-based compensation. This form of compensation is now well represented across the US workforce, ranging from executives in Fortune 500 companies (DiPrete et al. 2010) to engineers in high-tech firms (Blasi et al. 2013) to even baristas in Starbucks (Sharf 2015). The focus on stock-based compensation is important because it serves as an increasingly important pathway to economic mobility and wealth building (Kruse et al. 2021).
How do Asian Americans fare when it comes to stock-based compensation? Drawing on the literatures on Asian Americans’ assimilation, racial inequality, and the sociology of work, my argument is threefold. First, I argue that, on average, Asian Americans will be more likely to receive stock-based compensation in part because they are more likely to work in jobs where stock-based compensation is more common, such as high-wage, “good jobs” in larger firms and within the high-tech industry (Neely et al. 2023; Kalleberg 2011; Xie and Goyette 2003). This employment pattern, in turn, reflects Asian Americans’ higher educational attainment as strategic adaptation to the labor market (Lee and Kye 2016; Xie and Goyette 2003). Second, I argue that after accounting for job characteristics, Asian Americans will be equally likely to receive stock-based compensation as their White counterparts. This parity reflects the compensation setting process when it is stock-based. Specifically, stock-based compensation is usually provided on a company-wide or group basis (for example, by job title), thus equalizing across ethnoracial groups.
Finally, with respect to the amount of stock-based compensation, it is often determined by managers’ discretion, thus making it more susceptible to discriminatory biases. However, the amount of stock-based compensation might be more readily negotiable. Whereas wages are directly subject to budget constraints, stock-based compensation does not immediately impact the company’s cash flow, allowing greater flexibility for negotiation. If Asian Americans are more likely to select into jobs where stock-based compensation is provided as part of a broader strategic adaptation to the labor market, they may also be more likely to negotiate its amount to preempt potential discriminatory biases in managerial discretion, resulting in parity with Whites.
Using data from the 2002–2022 General Social Survey and the 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances—the only two nationally representative datasets that include questions on stock-based compensation and separate Asian Americans as a standalone ethnoracial category—this study reports three key findings. First, Asian Americans, on average, are more likely to receive stock-based compensation than Whites. Second, although it might be tempting to interpret these findings as indicative of the Asian American advantage, multivariate analysis reveals that it is explained by differences in job characteristics between the two groups. Specifically, the analysis accounts for differences in employment in high-wage, good jobs in larger firms and within the high-tech industry. Thus, Asian Americans are more likely to receive stock-based compensation because they are disproportionately employed in jobs where it is offered, while receiving it at comparable rates to Whites once in those jobs. These findings suggest that the concentration of Asian Americans in jobs offering stock-based compensation may reflect their strategic labor market adaptation and pursuit of economic mobility. Third, the study finds parity in the amount of stock-based compensation between Asian American and White workers who receive it. This parity is notable given the susceptibility of stock-based compensation to discriminatory biases.
This study contributes to the literatures on racial inequality, Asian Americans’ assimilation, and the sociology of work. The findings underscore the importance of moving beyond wages for understanding the dynamics of racial inequality in US finance-driven capitalism. Instead, this analysis points to stock-based compensation as an increasingly important site of racial inequality in the United States. The focus on the Asian American–White gap is particularly important for understanding the racial inequality consequences of stock-based compensation because Asian Americans are often overrepresented in jobs where it is more common. Studying this gap provides insights into whether representation in these fields translates into equitable compensation, allowing for a more nuanced understanding of economic outcomes of Asian Americans beyond the “model minority” stereotype. Without considering stock-based compensation, we miss a key site of racial inequality and Asian Americans’ economic incorporation.
ASIAN AMERICANS’ LABOR MARKET ATTAINMENT
A notable pattern in Asian Americans’ socioeconomic incorporation is their exceptional educational achievements compared to all other ethno-racial groups, including native-born Whites. Asian Americans are significantly more likely to hold bachelor’s and advanced degrees, exhibit the highest rates of college graduation, and are disproportionately represented at highly selective colleges and universities. Moreover, they are more likely to pursue fields of study that lead to high-wage occupations, particularly in the high-tech and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) sectors (Neely et al. 2023). Scholars have interpreted the exceptional educational achievement of Asian Americans as a form of strategic adaptation to the labor market (Xie and Goyette 2003).
Yet, Asian Americans’ achievement in education does not appear to translate to a comparable advantage in the labor market (Lee and Kye 2016; Sakamoto et al. 2009). Some studies report that Asian Americans have reached earnings parity with Whites, particularly those who are native-born and US-educated. Other research, however, points to a persistent disadvantage, with Asian Americans earning lower wages than similarly situated White counterparts.
These mixed findings underscore the importance of moving beyond single-outcome measures to assess Asian Americans’ economic incorporation. Much of existing research on Asian Americans’ attainment in the labor market has focused on wages as a key indicator of economic incorporation. This focus reflects a broader emphasis on inequality in wages in sociological scholarship, motivated by its sharp increase in the United States since the 1980s (Kristal and Cohen 2017; McCall and Percheski 2010). Yet, in recent decades nonwage components of compensation have grown in prominence (Kristal et al. 2020; Shuey and O’Rand 2004). This study focuses on the shift to stock-based compensation as an increasingly important, yet understudied, dimension of socioeconomic attainment. How do Asian Americans fare when it comes to stock-based compensation? Do their educational advantages translate into similar gains in stock-based compensation? Or do they fall behind? Or is there parity in stock-based compensation between Asian Americans and Whites? By addressing these questions, the study offers a more comprehensive account of Asian Americans’ labor market incorporation.
Studying the Asian American–White gap in stock-based compensation is especially important because it sheds light on emerging forms of labor market inequality that are not captured by traditional wage-based analyses. Given their exceptional educational attainment, Asian Americans might be expected to benefit equally, or even disproportionately, from stock-based compensation. However, if disparities exist despite these favorable characteristics, this pattern raises important questions about how newer forms of compensation reproduce racial inequalities. Focusing on stock-based compensation offers a more complete understanding of Asian Americans’ socioeconomic attainment in an evolving labor market.
BEYOND WAGES: THE CASE OF STOCK-BASED COMPENSATION
Over past decades, US companies increasingly provide workers with compensation based in part on company stock. In the early 1980s, fewer than one in eight workers received stock-based compensation (Davis 2009). By the late 2010s, more than one-fifth of employees received some of their compensation in company stock (Kruse et al. 2021; Kurtulus and Kruse 2017). For reference, this is three times more than the share of unionized employees (Rosenfeld 2014).
Many US companies across different industries and of different sizes now provide stock-based compensation. These include largest US corporations, such as Amazon, Apple, Coca-Cola, Exxon Mobil, General Motors, Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, Procter & Gamble, Southwest Airlines, and United Parcel Service, among others (Blasi et al. 2013; Kurtulus and Kruse 2017). Also, employees in many medium-sized companies receive stock-based compensation, such as at Chobani and Bob’s Red Mill (Blasi et al. 2013). Finally, stock-based compensation is increasingly common among smaller startup firms, especially in the high-tech industry. Data on venture-backed startup firms indicate that three-quarters of them offer stock-based compensation to their employees (Hand 2008).
Stock-based compensation gained momentum after the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 because of its several advantageous features. For companies, stock-based compensation is attractive because there is no direct cash outlay or immediate budgetary impact. In addition, companies implement stock-based compensation because it can help attract, motivate, and retain employees. By definition, stock-based compensation is tied to the company stock price, thus incentivizing employees by directly linking their earnings to firm performance. Because stock-based compensation usually requires a vesting period typically of two years, whereby employees must wait between the award of stock-based compensation and the point at which they gain ownership, it can also help retain workers. Studies show that stock-based compensation improves a number of firm-level outcomes, including greater employee loyalty and lower turnover (Kruse et al. 2010).
From the employee perspective, the focus on stock-based compensation is important due to its wealth-building potential. Because stock-based compensation is linked to the stock market, it provides employees with an opportunity to benefit from value appreciation over time, thus facilitating greater wealth accumulation (Hayes and O’Brien 2020). Additionally, stock-based compensation can entail capital income from dividend payments and share buybacks alongside labor income in the form of regular wages (Nau 2013). Moreover, the US tax system treats stock-based compensation more favorably than wage earnings because the tax rate on income from capital gains is lower than that on earned income (Hacker and Pierson 2010; Spilerman 2000). As one employee in the high-tech industry put it, “The real wealth in Silicon Valley is generated through equity” (Luo 2018).
Importantly, the economic value of stock-based compensation is not negligible. The estimated mean is about $82,000 and the median is about $7,000, which is equivalent to 27 percent and 7 percent of annual pay, respectively, in 2016 dollars (Kruse et al. 2021).
The shift to stock-based compensation can be understood as part of a broader trend of the financialization of the US economy (Carruthers and Kim 2011; Davis and Kim 2015; Lin and Neely 2020). Since the 1980s, the American economy has undergone a fundamental reorientation from manufacturing and service production to a finance-based capitalism (Krippner 2011). Financialization is evident in a broad-based reorientation toward a pattern of accumulation in which profits in the economy, including the finance industry and nominally nonfinancial firms, accrue increasingly through financial activity (Krippner 2011). That is, American firms increasingly derive profits through financial channels, as evidenced by a rise in the share of portfolio income from interest payments, dividends, and capital gains on investments to total corporate profits from under 10 percent to almost 40 percent during the same period (see also Lin and Tomaskovic-Devey 2013). One notable example is the Ford Motor Company. In recent years, this quintessential American manufacturing company generates most of its profits through financing car sales (as well as other financial operations) rather than through the sale of the cars themselves. The focus on stock-based compensation reveals that American firms increasingly rely on the financial sector not only to generate profits but also to pay workers.
More recent research suggests that the impact of financialization is also evident in the economic lives of households, as well. Over the past decades, Americans have become increasingly involved in finance and the stock market. In the 1980s, just one in five households was invested in the stock market, and by the mid-2010s, more than half of Americans owned stocks (Bricker et al. 2019). This increase was driven in part by the shift from defined-benefit to defined-contribution pensions (Davis 2009; Hacker 2006). The focus on stock-based compensation shows that it has become another important pathway through which Americans are invested in the stock market.
There is now growing empirical evidence that implicates financialization in widening economic inequality in the United States (Lin and Neely 2020; Davis and Kim 2015), including disparities between racial groups (Lin and Dominguez 2023). This study focuses on the financialization of compensation through pay in company stock and its implications for understanding Asian Americans’ labor market attainment.
THE ASIAN AMERICAN–WHITE GAP IN STOCK-BASED COMPENSATION
Several institutional features of stock-based compensation suggest that it may have important implications for understanding Asian Americans’ labor market attainment. Unlike regular cash wages, stock-based compensation is not paid universally to all employees. Rather, its compensation-setting process reflects two stages: whether stock-based compensation is provided (that is, eligibility) and the amount of stock-based compensation awarded among those who receive it. Analytically, it is important to distinguish between the two stages because they may reflect different mechanisms and contribute in distinct ways to disparities between Asian Americans and Whites.
First, eligibility for stock-based compensation is usually defined by the type of job and a company’s overall compensation policy. Similarly to other pecuniary benefits such as employer-sponsored pensions (Kristal et al. 2020; Shuey and O’Rand 2004), decisions about stock-based compensation are generally not made on an individual basis. Instead, they are usually determined at a group level (using factors such as wage level, job quality, or occupation) or implemented company-wide (with variation by industry and firm size).
Many firms rely on structured compensation bands to define eligibility for stock-based compensation by wage levels.1 Higher-paid employees are significantly more likely to receive stock-based compensation, while lower-paid workers are often excluded from such benefits. For instance, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Bank of America awarded company stock to employees earning more than $100,000 annually, while those earning less received cash bonuses (Son 2021). Consistent with this case, Edward Carberry (2010) found that stock-based compensation is positively associated with employees’ base wages, although the study is limited by a large but nonrepresentative sample. In addition, good jobs are more likely to come with stock-based compensation, although empirical evidence remains limited, with most existing research focusing on other financial benefits such as employer-sponsored pensions (Kalleberg 2011; Kalleberg et al. 2000). Finally, stock-based compensation is most common in managerial and professional occupations, in part because it is used to incentivize performance (Kruse et al. 2010).2
Stock-based compensation is more prevalent in larger firms, partly because the fixed administrative and legal costs associated with implementing such programs can be more efficiently distributed across a broader employee base.3 However, stock-based compensation is also common among smaller high-tech start-ups, which often rely on such compensation to attract and retain talent in the face of budget constraints. Evidence from venture-backed start-ups shows that three-quarters of them provide stock-based compensation to their employees (Hand 2008). More generally, across industries, stock-based compensation is most common in the high-tech sector, followed by the finance industry. Almost half of employees (45 percent) in the high-tech sector receive stock-based compensation, which is double the national average, and almost one-third do so in finance (Kurtulus and Kruse 2017). High-tech and finance firms provide the highest levels of stock-based compensation primarily because they rely on it to incentivize performance and operate in sectors closely tied to the stock market.4
Thus, although the prevalence of stock-based compensation has become more common in recent years, its distribution in the US workforce remains highly uneven. Stock-based compensation is concentrated in higher-wage positions, good jobs that provide other pecuniary benefits, managerial and professional roles, larger firms with the capacity to absorb implementation costs, and industries such as high-tech and finance, where stock-based compensation is a normative feature of total rewards systems. At the same time, Asian Americans are disproportionately represented in the types of jobs and companies, particularly in high-tech and professional roles, where stock-based compensation is more commonly offered, in part reflecting their higher educational achievement and strategic adaptation to the labor market through acquisition of hard skills (Neely et al. 2023; Lee and Kye 2016; Xie and Goyette 2003). Given this occupational sorting, one might expect that Asian Americans, on average, will be more likely to receive stock-based compensation than their White counterparts.
To further theorize the Asian American–White gap in the likelihood of receiving stock-based compensation, it is useful to consider how it is structured within the types of jobs and companies that provide it. In most cases, eligibility for stock-based compensation is not determined on an individual basis; rather, it is automatically extended to employees occupying positions or roles where such compensation is provided. In other words, employees become eligible for stock-based compensation by virtue of being hired into or promoted into roles where it is routinely offered. Conversely, in positions or firms where stock-based compensation is not offered, employees cannot receive it.
For instance, in the Bank of America example discussed earlier, stock-based compensation was awarded to all employees earning above a specific wage threshold. In other cases, federal regulations require that some types of stock-based compensation be provided to all employees meeting eligibility criteria. As a well-known example, Starbucks offers stock-based compensation through an employee stock purchase plan (ESPP), whereby workers can acquire company stock at a discounted price. Federal legislation requires that stock-based compensation through ESPPs be made available on a broad basis and provided to most employees. At Starbucks, employees are eligible following ninety days of employment. Even in the absence of federal requirements, many companies provide stock-based compensation on a broad basis. Turning again to Starbucks as an example, it also grants employees shares of company stock, and it does so on a company-wide basis.
Thus, when stock-based compensation is provided, it is often implemented on a broad basis or at the group level rather than individually determined, equalizing across racial lines. This discussion suggests parity in the likelihood of receiving stock-based compensation between Asian Americans and Whites who work in the types of jobs and companies where stock-based compensation is provided. Overall, one might expect that Asian Americans and Whites will be equally likely to receive stock-based compensation, after accounting for job characteristics.
Once eligibility for stock-based compensation is defined, its amount is determined.5 Compared to regular wages, the compensation setting process when it is stock-based often involves more discretion on the part of managers. Wage-setting typically follows more standardized human resources practices, such as benchmarking salaries against market rates. In comparison, the amount of stock-based compensation is often determined individually through the recommendation of direct managers. Additionally, there is inherent uncertainty around the value of stock-based compensation, as it is tied to stock market performance and may fluctuate over time. Greater discretion and valuation uncertainty may make stock-based compensation more vulnerable to discriminatory biases (Castilla 2008; Guseva and Rona-Tas 2001).
At the same time, because the pay-setting for stock-based compensation involves less standardization, it might offer more opportunities for employees to negotiate its amount (Sauer et al. 2021). As one employee put it, “I didn’t negotiate my base salary. I did, however, negotiate my [stock-based compensation]” (Luo 2018). Unlike regular wages, stock-based compensation does not require an immediate cash outlay, meaning that companies often face fewer budgetary constraints when determining the amount of stock-based compensation. As a result, employers might be more open to negotiations over stock-based compensation.
If Asian Americans are more likely to work in jobs where stock-based compensation is provided as part of a broader strategic adaptation to the labor market, they also might be more likely to negotiate for greater amounts. This negotiation pattern may serve to preempt potential discriminatory biases in managerial discretion, resulting in parity with White employees. While empirical research on Asian Americans’ negotiations for stock-based compensation remains limited, recent evidence on wages suggests that Asian Americans achieve comparable pay to Whites when they engage in negotiation (Lu 2023). Thus, one might expect that Asian Americans and Whites will receive similar amounts of stock-based compensation.
Empirical evidence on stock-based compensation and its implications for Asian Americans’ labor market attainment is limited.6 A notable exception, Carberry (2010) reports parity in stock-based compensation between Asian Americans and Whites. The study, however, relies on a nonrepresentative sample characterized by higher levels of stock-based compensation than in the broader US workforce, limiting the generalizability of its findings.
Overall, this discussion leads to the following expectations. First, it is possible that Asian Americans, on average, will be more likely to receive stock-based compensation. This advantage, however, will be explained by differences in job characteristics between Asian Americans and Whites, and the two groups will show parity in the probability of receiving stock-based compensation after accounting for job characteristics. Finally, with respect to the amount of stock-based compensation, one might expect that among employees who receive it, there will be parity between Asian Americans and Whites.
DATA AND METHODS
Data
A key challenge for research on stock-based compensation and its implications for understanding the socioeconomic attainment of Asian Americans is limited available data. Very few datasets contain information on stock-based compensation (Kruse et al. 2021) and include an adequate sample size of Asian Americans for reliable statistical estimates (Sakamoto et al. 2009). This study draws on data from the General Social Survey (GSS) and the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF), the only two nationally representative surveys that collect detailed information on both stock-based compensation and race. Each dataset has unique strengths and weaknesses, and together they enable a more comprehensive analysis of the Asian American–White gap in stock-based compensation.
The GSS is a large-scale nationally representative cross-sectional survey of American adults conducted by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago. The primary strength of the GSS for the present study is that it is considered to provide the best estimates of stock-based compensation in the United States (Kruse et al. 2010, 2). Information on stock-based compensation was first collected in the GSS in 2002, and every four years since then (that is, in 2002, 2006, 2010, 2014, 2018, and 2022). An important limitation of the GSS is that the questions about stock-based compensation are administered only to a random subset of respondents, resulting in a smaller number of Asian Americans in each wave. To address this limitation, the GSS data are pooled across survey waves. Also, although the GSS collects rich sociodemographic data, its earlier waves did not include detailed questions on job characteristics associated with stock-based compensation.7 For this reason, this study draws on the GSS waves from 2006 (the earliest wave with detailed information on stock-based compensation and its correlates) and 2022 (the most recent wave).
The SCF is a large-scale national cross-sectional survey of American households sponsored by the US Federal Reserve Board, and like the GSS, it is conducted by the NORC at the University of Chicago. The SCF is considered the gold standard for the study of household finances (Keister 2014, 350) because it collects the most detailed data on earnings, income, and wealth (Killewald et al. 2017), including information on stock-based compensation. The SCF estimates of stock-based compensation are highly consistent with those in the GSS (Kruse et al. 2021). However, a primary limitation of the SCF for the present study concerns its measures of race. Although the SCF has been administered triannually since 1989, its earlier waves did not include a separate category for Asian Americans. The 2022 wave is the first to separately identify Asian Americans, following a change in survey methodology (Moore and Pence 2021). This study therefore draws exclusively on the 2022 SCF wave as the only wave that contains a separate category for Asian Americans.
Following existing research (Kruse et al. 2010, 2021; Kurtulus and Kruse 2017), my analytic sample includes individuals who are currently employed and work in the private sector. I focus on differences between non-Hispanic Whites and Asian Americans, and exclude other ethnic and racial groups from the analysis. The sample size is N = 2,109 in the GSS data and N = 2,153 in the SCF data.
A limitation of the data used in this study is the relatively small sample size of Asian Americans (N = 104 in the GSS and N = 151 in the SCF). This is a common issue in the literature on Asian Americans’ socioeconomic attainment due to data constraints, and some previous analyses have relied on small samples of Asian Americans, particularly when disaggregated by ethnic group (for example, Kim and Sakamoto 2014; Kim and Zhao 2014). Although many large-scale surveys use oversampling techniques to ensure sufficient representation of minority groups, Asian Americans are often excluded from these targeted efforts (Sakamoto et al. 2009). Unfortunately, the GSS and SCF are the only available datasets with information on stock-based compensation and race, and neither oversamples Asian Americans.
Measures
My key outcome of interest is stock-based compensation. Following existing research (Kurtulus and Kruse 2017; Kruse et al. 2010, 2021), it is captured by ownership of stock in the employer company (either directly or through a pension plan at work) or stock options in the employer company. I use this measurement strategy for the analysis of both the GSS and the SCF data because the questions about stock-based compensation are similar across the surveys. Due to differences in compensation-setting processes, I use two measures of stock-based compensation: a dichotomous variable set to 1 if the respondent receives stock-based compensation and 0 otherwise, and a continuous variable for its conditional amount (that is, conditional on receiving stock-based compensation).
An important caveat about the measurement of stock-based compensation in both the GSS and SCF is that it relies on respondents’ self-reports, which may be subject to reporting error (for example, if a respondent receives stock-based compensation but does not report it in a survey). Neither the GSS nor the SCF includes data to address this possibility. I take advantage of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) survey that contains employees’ self-reports on stock-based compensation with matched employers’ data (see Kruse et al. 2010). The NBER survey was administered between 2001 and 2006 to a large sample of employees (N = 36,590) in fourteen American companies with stock-based compensation. Although the NBER survey data are not representative, the sample covers American firms across different industries and of various sizes. Comparative analysis shows that the NBER data yields findings consistent with the nationally representative GSS. In the NBER survey, almost all employees (93 percent) correctly report receiving stock-based compensation.
As my main predictor of interest, I use a dichotomous variable that indicates whether the respondent identifies as Asian, with non-Hispanic White as the reference category. In the interest of consistency, the analysis relies on the race category the respondent identifies with most strongly in both the GSS and the SCF analysis. A limitation of the SCF data is that only information on the respondent’s strongest racial identity is available. In the GSS, respondents can indicate up to three race-ethnic categories. My results remain the same when I use an alternative measurement strategy in the GSS data (for example, the respondent is coded as Asian if they list it in any of their race responses).
Finally, I control for job characteristics and sociodemographic attributes.8 Job characteristics include wage income,9 tenure, occupation, industry, job quality, and company size. Sociodemographic attributes include education, marital status, having children, age, gender, and being foreign-born. Most of these variables are coded in a consistent way across the GSS and SCF data, to the extent possible. Online appendix table A.1 summarizes the measurement of all variables used in the analysis across both datasets. Table A.2 presents descriptive statistics for the GSS data, and table A.3 for the SCF data.10
Analytic Strategy
I begin by presenting descriptive analysis of differences in stock-based compensation between Asians and non-Hispanic Whites. Due to differences in compensation-setting processes, I estimate separately an unadjusted Asian American–White gap in two outcomes: the probability of receiving stock-based compensation and its conditional amount. For the former, the outcome is a dichotomous variable set to 1 if the respondent receives stock-based compensation and 0 otherwise. For the latter, the outcome is the conditional amount of stock-based compensation (that is, conditional on receiving it), and this analysis is restricted to employees who receive stock-based compensation (that is, those who do not receive it are not included in this analysis). Next, I examine the gap in a multivariate framework, where I first control for job characteristics and then add sociodemographic attributes.11 I use a linear probability model (LPM) to estimate the probability of receiving stock-based compensation,12 and an ordinary least squares (OLS) regression to examine its conditional amount (logged).13
RESULTS
I begin by presenting descriptive results that show the unadjusted gap in stock-based compensation between Asian Americans and Whites. I then move to multivariate analysis that accounts for job characteristics and sociodemographic attributes.
Descriptive Results: Unadjusted Asian American–White Gap in Stock-Based Compensation
Table 1 presents the probability of receiving stock-based compensation and its amount for Asian American and White workers in the General Social Survey and the Survey of Consumer Finances. Several findings stand out. First, there is a pronounced and statistically significant gap in the probability of receiving stock-based compensation between Asian Americans and Whites. Asian American workers are, as expected, more likely to receive stock-based compensation than their White counterparts (in the GSS, 32 percent versus 23 percent, respectively; in the SCF, 26 percent versus 16 percent, respectively).
Unadjusted Stock-Based Compensation by Race, General Social Survey (GSS), and Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF)
There does not appear to be a statistically significant difference in the amount of stock-based compensation between Asian American and White workers. Specifically, the difference in the amount of stock-based compensation is not statistically significant in either the total sample, or among employees who receive stock-based compensation. These results are consistent across the GSS and SCF data.
Finally, it is worth noting that the prevalence of stock-based compensation appears to be somewhat lower in the SCF compared to the GSS, consistent with prior research (Kruse et al. 2021). The gap between the SCF and GSS estimates likely reflects different units of analysis. The GSS sample targets individuals, whereas the SCF shifts the unit of analysis to the household level. The difference in the unit of analysis may have implications for stock-based compensation estimates if there is clustering of stock-based compensation reflecting assortative mating in family formation patterns. That is, stock-based compensation might be clustered in the same families if individuals with stock-based compensation are more likely to be married to those who also receive it, in part because stock-based compensation is associated with sociodemographic characteristics that are also associated with assortative mating. With respect to the amount of stock-based compensation, SCF estimates are also somewhat lower than those reported in the GSS for the overall sample and for Whites but appear higher for Asian Americans. However, these comparisons should be made with consideration of the large standard deviations and differences in survey design.
Multivariate Results: Parity in Stock-Based Compensation Between Asian Americans and Whites
Moving to multivariate analysis, table 2 presents LPM regression results estimating the probability of receiving stock-based compensation for Asian American and White workers after controlling for job characteristics and sociodemographic attributes (logit regression results are presented in table A.4). The Asian American–White gap in the probability of receiving stock-based compensation stops being statistically significant after accounting for job characteristics (models 2 and 5). It is worth noting that the coefficient on Asian American differs significantly between the unadjusted models and those controlling for job characteristics, indicating that the coefficient change is statistically significant after accounting for covariates. The Asian American-White gap remains insignificant after adding sociodemographic controls (models 3 and 6).
Linear Probability Model Regression Results Estimating Probability of Stock-Based Compensation by Race, General Social Survey (GSS), and Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF)
Also, results show that the probability of receiving stock-based compensation is associated with job characteristics and sociodemographic attributes. Employees with stock-based compensation are more likely to receive higher wages and be employed in good jobs as measured by employer-sponsored benefits; larger firms with more employees; and the finance, insurance, real estate and high-tech industries, although the latter is not consistently significant across all the models. Also, employees with stock-based compensation are more likely to have higher educational attainment. Interestingly, the coefficient on foreign-born does not appear to be statistically significant in either the GSS or the SCF data.
Table 3 presents OLS regression results predicting the conditional amount of stock-based compensation after controlling for job characteristics and sociodemographic attributes. Results show that the Asian American–White gap in the amount of stock-based compensation remains insignificant. Similarly to the probability of receiving stock-based compensation, its amount is associated with job characteristics and sociodemographic attributes. However, it is worth noting that the amount of stock-based compensation is negatively associated with company size, likely because smaller firms (for example, high-tech start-ups) are more likely to offer it to attract workers.
Ordinary Least Squares Regression Results Estimating the Conditional Amount of Stock-Based Compensation by Race, General Social Survey (GSS), and Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF)
To summarize, Asian Americans, on average, are more likely than Whites to receive stock-based compensation, in part because they are more likely to work in jobs where such compensation is offered, such as high-wage, good jobs in larger firms and within the high-tech industry. However, within these jobs, Asian Americans and Whites are equally likely to receive stock-based compensation and receive similar amounts. These findings point to Asian Americans’ strategic adaptation to the labor market through selection into jobs with stock-based compensation. It is possible that Asian Americans pursue economic mobility by strategically seeking jobs that provide stock-based compensation. In the same way, previous research suggests that Asian Americans strategically adapt to the labor market by attaining exceptional levels of education (Lee and Kye 2016; Sakamoto et al. 2009).
An important consideration in interpreting these findings is the relatively small sample size of Asian Americans in my data. The observed parity in stock-based compensation between Asian Americans and Whites might reflect insufficient statistical power due to sample limitations rather than a true equivalence between the two groups. It is worth noting, though, that the coefficient for Asian Americans is consistently positive across all models. If this coefficient were statistically significant (for example, in a larger sample), it would suggest that Asian Americans not only sort into jobs that offer stock-based compensation but also strategically negotiate for it. Such a pattern would be consistent with the broader argument that Asian Americans may pursue stock-based compensation as a form of strategic adaptation to the labor market.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
This study is among the first to examine the shift to stock-based compensation and its implications for Asian Americans’ labor market attainment in the United States. Combining data from two large-scale, nationally representative datasets, the General Social Survey and the Survey of Consumer Finances, the analysis reports three main findings. First, Asian Americans, on average, are more likely to receive stock-based compensation than their White counterparts. Second, the Asian American–White gap stops being statistically significant after accounting for job characteristics and remains statistically insignificant after adding sociodemographic controls. Third, there appears to be no statistically significant difference in the amount of stock-based compensation between Asian American and White workers who receive it. These results are consistent across the GSS and SCF data.
Taken together, these results offer important implications of interest to scholars of Asian Americans’ assimilation, racial inequality, and the sociology of work. First, this study offers novel insights for our understanding of Asian Americans’ labor market attainment. On the one hand, my study shows that Asian Americans, on average, are more likely to receive stock-based compensation. Although it might be tempting to interpret these findings as indicative of the Asian American advantage, further analysis reveals that it is explained by differences in job characteristics between Asian Americans and Whites. My findings suggest that Asian Americans are more likely to receive stock-based compensation in part because they are more likely to work in jobs where it is provided (for example, high-wage, good jobs in larger firms and within the high-tech industry). However, the two groups are equally likely to receive stock-based compensation in these jobs. This parity likely reflects how stock-based compensation is designed, with its eligibility defined at a group level (for example, by job title), thus minimizing differences across racial fault lines. My findings show that among employees who receive stock-based compensation, Asian Americans and Whites receive similar amounts. This parity is notable given that the process of pay-setting when it comes to stock-based compensation is based to a large extent on managerial discretion, and as such is more prone to biases and discrimination.
Second, this study’s findings point to the important role of selection as a sociologically meaningful phenomenon. Reflecting its focus on the identification and isolation of causal effects (Abbott 1998), social science research largely views selection as a statistical nuisance. Accordingly, scholars have developed a number of statistical methodologies to account for selection (Heckman 1979). By contrast, this study shows that selection into jobs with stock-based compensation has important implications for understanding patterns of Asian Americans’ labor market attainment. Specifically, this study suggests that selection into jobs with stock-based compensation might reflect Asian Americans’ strategic adaptation to the labor market and economic mobility more broadly. Similarly, prior research suggests that Asian Americans navigate the labor market dynamics by pursuing exceptionally high educational credentials as a form of strategic adaptation (Lee and Kye 2016; Sakamoto et al. 2009).
Related to that, this study shows that sociological findings can be theoretically meaningful and substantively important even in the absence of statistical significance. Quantitative sociological research tends to place an emphasis on statistical significance, where results with p-values below conventional thresholds are favored over null findings, and the latter are viewed as inconsequential (Firebaugh 2008). Yet, statistical significance is not equal to sociological importance; findings can be important even in the absence of statistical significance. Rather than a null finding, the lack of statistical significance in the analysis indicates parity between Asian Americans and Whites, which has implications for understanding racial inequality in stock-based compensation.
More broadly, this study introduces stock-based compensation as a novel site of Asian Americans’ economic incorporation. My results suggest that in the course of financialization of the US economy, stock-based compensation has emerged as an important labor market mechanism for our understanding of Asian Americans’ economic mobility. These findings further underscore the importance of moving beyond wages for understanding the dynamics of racial inequality and Asian Americans’ socioeconomic attainment. By limiting the focus on wages alone, we miss the increasingly important role of nonwage components of compensation (Kristal et al. 2020; Kruse et al. 2010; Shuey and O’Rand 2004) and nonpecuniary job characteristics (Kelly and Moen 2020; Pedulla 2020; Schneider and Harknett 2019; Kalleberg 2011) in the (re)production of racial inequality. This study shows that without considering stock-based compensation, we overlook a key dimension of racial inequality and Asian Americans’ economic incorporation.
Finally, this study underscores the importance of moving beyond the labor market and considering the role of financial markets for understanding Asian Americans’ economic incorporation in the new stratification order of the US finance-based economy. Existing research places Asian Americans’ socioeconomic attainment within the context of the labor market, largely reflecting classical sociological approaches such as the Wisconsin status-attainment model (Blau and Duncan 1967). However, during the financialization of the US economy, financial markets have grown to play an increasingly important role in stratification processes and outcomes. The focus on stock-based compensation reveals that the labor and financial markets have become increasingly intertwined, suggesting that Asian Americans’ economic mobility increasingly takes place within the context of financial markets.
My findings offer important theoretical and policy implications for understanding Asian Americans’ labor market assimilation, but there are also limitations to my study that future research should address. First, this study relies on a relatively small sample of Asian Americans. Future research should aim to replicate the analysis using larger samples to strengthen confidence in the findings (Freese and Peterson 2017). More broadly, future research efforts should prioritize the collection of nationally representative data that include sufficiently large samples of Asian Americans to allow for meaningful statistical inference (Sakamoto et al. 2009), as well as a comprehensive set of socioeconomic indicators, including—but not limited to—stock-based compensation. In the absence of such knowledge infrastructure (Hirschman 2021), important insights into Asian Americans’ socioeconomic experiences remain overlooked.
Second, future research should consider possible variation among different Asian ethnic groups. My findings show that stock-based compensation is linked to educational attainment, suggesting that there might be important differences between Asians who received their education in the United States versus abroad, as well as by English proficiency and years in the United States (Lee and Kye 2016). Although my analysis distinguishes between immigrant and native-born groups, data limitations did not make it possible to examine further heterogeneity among Asian workers.
Also, future research should examine stock-based compensation and its implications for Asian Americans’ labor market attainment through the intersectional lens of race and gender. There is now a long line of sociological scholarship that shows that gender and race intersect in a meaningful way (Collins 2015; Leicht 2008; Browne and Misra 2003), including with respect to Asian Americans’ economic incorporation (Lee and Kye 2016). Unfortunately, sample size limitations did not make it possible to disaggregate the analysis by gender and race in the present study, underscoring the importance of data collection efforts for understanding Asian Americans’ socioeconomic attainment in the future.
Finally, this study is limited in its scope to stock-based compensation. Future research should move beyond compensation in stock to also analyze other novel types of compensation and how they contribute to Asian Americans’ labor market attainment, such as payment systems emerging in the new sharing economy (Vallas and Schor 2020). Addressing these questions would offer important theoretical advancements as well as suggest possible avenues for policy interventions.
FOOTNOTES
↵1. As with other nonwage components of compensation, stock-based compensation typically does not involve wage concessions from employees (Kruse et al. 2021). Employees are generally not given the option to substitute between base wage and stock-based compensation, as it is provided in addition to, rather than in lieu of, wages.
↵2. Nationally representative data from the General Social Survey (GSS) indicate that approximately 27 percent of managers receive stock-based compensation and about 22 percent of employees in professional roles do (Kruse et al. 2010). By contrast, service workers are the least likely to receive stock-based compensation (6.5 percent).
↵3. The GSS data indicate that approximately 40 percent of employees in large firms (that is, with 10,000 or more employees) receive stock-based compensation, compared to just 16 percent in small firms with fewer than 100 employees (Kurtulus and Kruse 2017).
↵4. Notably, the manufacturing sector also shows a relatively high prevalence of stock-based compensation, at 29 percent (Kurtulus and Kruse 2017), likely reflecting the broader adoption of high-performance work practices in this industry (Kruse et al. 2010). In contrast, stock-based compensation is considerably less common in other industries. For example, it is among the lowest in the agriculture, mining, and construction industry group, where only 11 percent of workers report receiving such compensation (Kurtulus and Kruse 2017).
↵5. The amount of stock-based compensation is usually set at the time of hiring, promotion, or during so-called annual “refreshers.”
↵6. Although there is ample scholarly work on stock-based compensation in the literature on labor relations and organizational research, it focuses primarily on employee performance and firm-level outcomes, rather than on distributional patterns. As a result, empirical evidence on racial disparities remains scarce. One of the few studies to explore this issue, Carberry (2010) finds that White employees are more likely to receive stock-based compensation than their Black and Hispanic counterparts (71 percent versus 58 and 39 percent, respectively), though the study is limited by a non-representative sample of US workers.
↵7. Specifically, I do not include the 2002 GSS wave in my analysis because it does not contain information on the size of the company where a respondent works. My results remain the same when I include the 2002 GSS wave in my analysis and do not control for company size in my models.
↵8. To avoid overcontrolling (Elwert and Winship 2014) and small cell sizes (especially given a relatively low number of Asian Americans in the GSS and SCF), I include only theoretically relevant controls in the multivariate regression analysis. For instance, I include a dichotomous variable for the high-tech–finance industry, where stock-based compensation is more common and Asian Americans are overrepresented. However, I do not include variables for other industries, even though they are available in the GSS and SCF data. My results remain substantively the same when additional variables are included in the analysis (for example, other industries), but they proved not to be statistically significant.
↵9. Wage income does not include the value of stock-based compensation.
↵10. The online appendix for tables A.1 through A.4 can be found at https://www.rsfjournal.org/content/12/3/174/tab-supplemental.
↵11. A concern in the multivariate regression analysis of Asian Americans’ labor market attainment is the possibility of overcontrolling, if models include covariates that are themselves potentially impacted by minority status (that is, endogenous variables) (Elwert and Winship 2014; Sakamoto et al. 2009). To address this possibility, a well-established approach in the literature is to include only sociodemographic covariates because they are not closely linked to labor market outcomes at a specific point in time (Sakamoto et al. 2009). Following this approach, I estimated the models only with sociodemographic attributes. My results remain substantively the same.
↵12. LPM regression is estimated as OLS regression for dichotomous outcomes. While logistic regression is often used for binary dependent variables, LPM and logit typically yield similar estimates for nonrare outcomes, as in this study. I present LPM results in the interest of interpretability, as the coefficients can be directly understood as changes in predicted probability. My conclusions remain the same when I estimate logit regression; these results are reported in the online appendix (table A.4).
↵13. For the conditional amount of stock-based compensation, I also estimated unadjusted median differences and conducted a median regression because this approach is less sensitive to skewed outcome distributions than comparisons at the mean, particularly in the context of a small sample size, as is the case in this study. My results remain substantively the same. Also, I considered using Heckman selection models (Heckman 1979). However, specifying a valid exclusion restriction proved particularly challenging due to the complexity of the selection processes involved: not only selection into employment (at the individual level), but also selection into jobs that offer stock-based compensation, which reflects both individual- and firm-level factors. Prior research shows that without a strong exclusion restriction, Heckman estimates can be less reliable than OLS (Wolfolds and Siegel 2018; Winship and Mare 1992), especially in the case of a small sample size, as in this study. Accordingly, my analysis does not use Heckman’s method.
- © 2026 Russell Sage Foundation. Grigoryeva, Angelina. 2026. “The Shift to Stock-Based Compensation and the Asian American–White Pay Gap Revisited.” RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences 12(3): 174–91. https://doi.org/10.7758/RSF.2026.12.3.08. I would like to thank the editors, reviewers, and authors of this RSF issue for their constructive feedback on earlier versions of this article. Direct correspondence to: Angelina Grigoryeva, at angelina.grigoryeva@utoronto.ca, 700 University Avenue, Unit 17100, Department of Sociology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5G 1X6, Canada.
Open Access Policy: RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences is an open access journal. This article is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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