Demographic categories need broadening

U.S demographic changes aren?t being reflected in much of the psychological literature.

By Scott Sleek
Monitor staff

A wealthy Cuban exile, a destitute Mexican immigrant and an Argentinean exchange student are typically listed by demographers and other researchers under a single label?Hispanic. A Bombay-born physician and an impoverished Chinese immigrant are both counted as Asian.

Such categorization ignores the vast diversity within each ethnic group, lumping people under a short menu of skin colors, psychologists argue. So as they try to broaden their understanding of America?s multicultural landscape, many psychologists are calling for a broadened, more sophisticated use of demographic categories in behavioral studies.

Researchers from other disciplines are also raising concerns about scientists? tendency to oversimplify race. The concern was a prime topic of discussion in October at a National Research Council (NRC) conference on racial trends. During the Washington, D.C., event, scholars from various disciplines cited a variety of ethnic subcultures and generational variables that confound today?s simplified racial categories:

? Asian immigrants represent a broad range of education levels, even though they are stereotyped as all being industrious and highly schooled. Asian Indians are among the most highly educated of the U.S. population, while Cambodian immigrants are among the least educated, according to one finding presented at the conference.

? Sharp generational differences are found within ethnic groups. For example, research finds that first-generation Mexican immigrants have a high unemployment rate. But each successive generation fares better economically than the previous one.

? Interracial marriages are on the rise, creating a larger population of children who don?t fit under one racial label. Today, more Native Americans are married to whites than to other Native Americans, researchers at the NRC conference said.

Some psychologists are concerned that these differences aren?t reflected in much of the psychological literature. Behavioral studies too often identify differences between ethnic groups without taking the important follow-up step of looking at differences within those groups, says psychologist Gail Wyatt, PhD, of the department of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles. And this can inadvertently lead to inaccurate generalizations and stereotypes.

For example, behavioral researchers have traditionally studied sexual behaviors by using racial and ethnic categories as the major grouping variable, Wyatt says. But in many cases, other factors such as socioeconomic status (SES) may be the more crucial variable, she says. For example, many studies show that African-American women and Latinas face a high risk for acquiring HIV. Researchers also have found that more than half of black women and Latinas live below the poverty level, compared with 28 percent of white women and other minority women, she notes.

Thus, Wyatt questions whether poverty, not race, is the real defining variable. But that question remains unanswered, she says, because sex research often fails to consider how the risk behaviors of poor minority women compare with those of their more affluent, educated counterparts.

Instead of race or ethnicity, researchers should consider using such categories as SES, or level of acculturation in the case of immigrant populations, as their major grouping variables, Wyatt suggests. She and others agree that race, in the world of social science, may be overrated.