The Nature of Nurture

Clifton Roscoe on disparity and development

As you might have expected, Amy Wax’s appearance on the show last week has generated a lot of comments. I take the “racial realism” issue that we spent the latter half of the show debating very seriously. It reframes a dispute that’s become central to my thinking: the bias narrative versus the development narrative. Briefly, the bias narrative describes racial disparities in achievement, wealth, crime, and a host of other measures of success as the result of systemic racism, while the development narrative describes those disparities as the result of the inadequate cultivation of skills and character within disadvantaged black communities.

Clearly I think the development narrative is a much more accurate description of the problems facing so many African Americans. And one of the unsettling implications of racial realism is the suggestion that differences in group intelligence will limit the degree to which racial disparities can be eliminated, even with adequate development. I think the jury’s still out on that, and it will remain out until we get parity in development. Only then will be able to see if and to what degree racial realism explains our current predicament.

TGS correspondent Clifton Roscoe is a devotee of the development narrative as well. This week he writes in with another deep dive into the numbers that show us where we stand on the development question.

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The Nature of Nurture

by Clifton Roscoe

Dear Glenn,

Thanks for having Amy Wax on your show recently. I don’t always agree with her positions, but the conversations you have with her are always thought provoking. The portion of your discussion that focused on whether there’s room for efforts towards proportional representation reminded me of a 2021 analysis of the historical percentages of America’s physicians who are black that was done by researchers at UCLA. The short version is that the percentage of America’s physicians who are black hasn’t changed much over the past century. It grew from 1.8% in 1900 to 5.4% in 2018. Here’s a graphic that shows the black percentage of the population and of America’s physicians:

More recent data from the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) shows that things haven’t changed much since 2018 either. Blacks accounted for 5.2% of America’s active physicians in 2022. Blacks also accounted for 6.3% of America’s active medical residents as of 2022, so there’s no reason to think that the percentage of America’s physicians who are black will reach the 13% of Americans who are black anytime soon. 

Some will argue that racial barriers are the primary reason there aren’t more black physicians. But that argument doesn't hold water unless you believe the playing field has been tilted in a way that favors Asians, a group that makes up 6.3% of the population but accounts for 18.8% of America’s active physicians and 21.3% of medical residents. 

A look at medical school applicant data shows that Asians accounted for over 25% of those accepted to medical school in 2023-2024 (See Table A-12). They had higher average MCAT scores and GPAs than their peers as well (See Table A-18). The data shows that Asians account for a disproportionate share of America’s physicians because they’ve worked hard and earned their way into the profession. 

The people who push for forced proportional representation want to do to medicine what they've done to the federal judiciary. Blacks account for about 11.5% of America's federal judges despite making up only 5% of America's practicing attorneys. So how did this come about? How did a group that's underrepresented in the profession manage to achieve rough parity within the federal judiciary? The short answer is that a conscientious effort was made to appoint a lot of black judges to the federal bench. Here are the stats for President Biden's appointments through September of last year according to the American Bar Association.

Confirmed judges nominated by Biden as of October 1, 2023:

America has 1.3 million practicing attorneys, with blacks accounting for 65,000 (5%) of that number. There are only 1,423 sitting federal judges, so it's relatively easy to find good black nominees when presidents typically appoint less than 50 federal judges per year. Those appointments, however, haven't boosted the proportion of America's lawyers who are black. The percentage of America's lawyers who are black has been about 5% since 2013. 

The federal judiciary is small enough that presidents have been able to achieve something close to proportionate representation. There aren't enough qualified black people to achieve similar levels of parity within America's most demanding professions, however, without lowering standards or badly distorting competitive markets. What ought to happen, but hasn't so far, is that black leaders should acknowledge this point and take steps to develop more black applicants who can compete for entry into America’s most demanding professions. 

I’m not a cognitive neuroscientist, so I’ll sidestep questions about bell curves and the far tails of talent distributions. What seems clear to a layman is that the development of cognitive ability is a function of nature and nurture. A paper published by Gifted Child Quarterly in November of 2022 showed that there are significant racial disparities in advanced (i.e., above the 90th percentile) achievement in science and mathematics among elementary school students. The authors pointed to a relatively small set of factors that explain these differences. Here's a graphic:

Antecedent factors help explain why some students experience greater learning opportunities, including in their homes and schools. They include a family's socioeconomic status (SES), the language spoken in the home, and the student's disability status. Opportunity factors are aspects of learning in homes and schools that facilitate skills acquisition. Propensity factors are the student's own characteristics that facilitate skills acquisition and maximize their ability to benefit from learning opportunities. They include the student's prior achievement, behavior, and executive functioning. The model suggests that the people who get the most out of their natural ability often grow up in nurturing environments. 

A look at several data sources shows that Asian children are raised in households that are more nurturing than most. They’re mostly born to married mothers who have college degrees and are older than their peers. They’re also more likely to live in two-parent households with high incomes. 

Here’s a summary of data from a CDC document titled “Births: Final Data for 2021”:

Percentage of babies born to unmarried mothers (See Table 9):

Asian: 12.6%

Black: 70.1%

Hispanic: 53.2%

White: 27.5%

All races and origins: 40.0%

Percentage of babies born to mothers with a bachelor’s degree (See Table 11):

Asian: 67.9%

Black: 19.6%

Hispanic: 17.0%

White: 45.8%

All races and origins: 35.6%

Age of mother at first birth (See Table 11):

Asian: 31.2 years

Black: 25.5 years

Hispanic: 25.5 years

White: 28.1 years

All races and origins: 27.3 years

Here’s a graphic from the US Census Bureau that shows living arrangements for children by race:

Here’s a US Census Bureau graphic that shows real median household income by race:

These factors significantly impact the outcomes for children. 

The Annie E. Casey Foundation released a report a few weeks ago that provided 12 indicators of child and youth well being. They were grouped as follows:

Early Childhood

• Babies born at normal weight

• Children ages 3 to 5 enrolled in nursery school, preschool, or kindergarten

Education and Early Work Experiences

• Fourth graders who scored at or above proficient in reading

• Eighth graders who scored at or above proficient in math

• High school students graduating on time

• Young adults ages 19 to 26 who are in school or working

• Young adults ages 25 to 29 who have an associates degree or higher

 Family Resources

• Females ages 15 to 19 who delay childbearing until adulthood

• Children who live with a householder who has at least a high school diploma

• Children who live in two-parent families

• Children living at or above 200% of poverty

Neighborhood Context

• Children who live in low poverty areas (<20%)

They constitute a set of critical factors that impact how well children transition to adulthood. They also impact the likelihood that a child will get the most out of their talent.

This graphic provides an overall index score, by race: 

Add it all up and the data demonstrates that Asian children, on average, grow up in more nurturing environments than those of their peers. Correlation doesn’t prove causation, but it’s not much of a leap to think these differences at least partially explain racial differences in cognitive ability and representation within many of America’s most demanding and lucrative professions. 

The data also suggests that America's talent pool would expand and our economy would be stronger if more black and Hispanic children grew up in more nurturing environments, with an emphasis on stronger family structures. This premise is consistent with the main conclusions in Melissa Kearney’s book, The Two-Parent Privilege. 

This is an issue of growing importance now that America has a higher percentage of households headed by single parents than almost any country in the world according to Pew Research. Our nation's future economic vitality will depend upon our ability to maintain a workforce with world-class skills.

There's no consensus about how to address this issue. Good places to start would be the development of policies that promote stronger family structures, taking steps to bolster struggling families, and focusing on early childhood development. The current state of American politics is toxic and dysfunctional. The public seems to understand this, but our two major political parties haven't gotten the memo. It may take a couple of election cycles before new leaders with good ideas emerge. 

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