1217232

research-article2023
SREXXX10.1177/23326492231217232Sociology of Race and EthnicitySolís et al.

Original Research Article

Sociology of Race and Ethnicity

Skin Tone and Inequality of

1­–19
© American Sociological Association 2023
DOI: 10.1177/23326492231217232
https://doi.org/10.1177/23326492231217232

Socioeconomic Outcomes journals.sagepub.com/home/sre

in Mexico: A Comparative
Analysis Using Optical
Colorimeters and Color
Palettes

Patricio Solís1 , Braulio Güémez2 ,

and Raymundo M. Campos-Vázquez1

Abstract
We study the association between skin tone and socioeconomic outcomes in Mexico. Previous studies
have relied on subjective measures of skin tone, but these may suffer from measurement error and bias
from “money lightening” effects, and they do not include other physical attributes, which could lead to
overestimation. We use a new data source in Mexico specifically designed to address these challenges,
including an objective measurement of skin tone based on optical colorimeters. We find that the estimates
of the association between skin tone and socioeconomic outcomes are consistent across data collection
techniques (interviewer-rated, self-rated, machine-rated) and surveys. Around half of the association
is explained by differences in socioeconomic background, a finding that emphasizes the importance of
considering both historically accumulated disadvantages and current mechanisms of generating inequality.
We also find that phenotypical characteristics other than skin tone (eye and hair color) are significant
predictors of socioeconomic outcomes. These findings suggest that more than a strict pigmentocracy,
where light skin is the only element or the definitive one, ethnoracial stratification in Mexico may be better
characterized in a broader sense: as one where people with a set of racialized physical features linked to
European origins have greater accumulated privilege and social advantages than those with features linked
to Indigenous or Black ancestry.

Keywords
skin tone, Mexico, social inequalities, measurement, racialization

Introduction 1
El Colegio de México, Ciudad de México, Mexico
Over the last decade, an increasing number of stud- 2
Duke University, Durham, NC, USA
ies have documented the strong association between
Corresponding Author:
skin tone and socioeconomic outcomes in Mexico
Patricio Solís, El Colegio de México, A.C., Centro de
(Bailey, Saperstein, and Penner 2014; Solís and Estudios Sociológicos. Carretera Picacho Ajusco 20,
Güémez 2020; Telles 2014). Skin tone is associated Ampliación Fuentes del Pedregal, 14110, Ciudad de
with educational attainment (Telles, Flores, and México, México.
Urrea-Giraldo 2015), occupational status (Flores Email: psolis@colmex.mx
2 Sociology of Race and Ethnicity 00(0)
and Telles 2012; Villarreal 2010), and economic
outcomes (Bailey et al. 2014; Campos-Vazquez and
Medina-Cortina 2019; Monroy-Gómez-Franco,
Vélez-Grajales, and Yalonetzky 2018; Reeskens
and Velasco Aguilar 2021). Results are generally
consistent: Individuals with lighter skin tones reach
more advantaged socioeconomic positions than
those with dark skin. This work has also shown that
the association between skin color and socioeco-
nomic outcomes is independent of socioeconomic
background and other relevant ethnoracial charac-
teristics, such as speaking an indigenous language
or ascription to an ethnoracial category (e.g., “mes-
tizo” or “White”). The consistency of these findings
has led some to characterize the racial stratification
system of Mexico and other Latin American coun-
tries as a “pigmentocracy” (Telles 2014).
Despite the empirical consistency of this “pig-
mentocratic” pattern, unresolved methodological
and substantive debates persist regarding the asso-
ciation between skin tone and socioeconomic out-
comes. This article uses the Project on Ethnic-Racial
Discrimination in Mexico (PRODER) survey, a new
data source in Mexico, to address four distinct chal-
lenges: assessing the validity of the Project on
Ethnicity and Race in Latin America (PERLA) color
palette; mitigating potential measurement error, per-
ception bias, and endogeneity issues related to skin
color measurements derived from color palettes;
considering other physical attributes often over-
looked; and examining the role of socioeconomic
background in explaining the relationship between
skin tone and socioeconomic outcomes.
First, we aim to assess the validity of the
PERLA color palette, which has previously been
utilized to measure skin tone in Mexico and other
Latin American countries. This instrument has
been crucial to unveil the previously neglected
association between skin tone and social inequality.
However, because it was designed to measure skin
tone across various Latin American countries, this
color palette may not adequately capture the spe-
cific skin tone distribution of the Mexican popula-
tion. These problems result in a distribution that is
highly concentrated on three out of its 11 color cat-
egories, missing variations in mid-level skin tones.
Consequently, using the PERLA color palette may
introduce measurement biases when estimating the
impact of skin color on socioeconomic outcomes.
To address this potential issue, we have designed
and tested a new color palette to capture in greater
detail the distribution of skin tone in Mexico.
Second, we argue that even with a color palette
better suited for Mexico, all measurements based
on color palettes could still be affected by measure-
ment error and subjective biases which may lead to
endogeneity. As a consequence of “money lighten-
ing” (Roth, Solís, and Sue 2022), where people rate
others and themselves as lighter than they are when
they have higher socioeconomic status (SES), esti-
mates of the effect of skin tone on SES using color
palettes might be biased. To address this bias and
its potential influence on measures of socioeco-
nomic coefficients, we used a novel measurement
of skin tone using optical colorimeters, a color-
capturing electronic device with its own source of
light that allows us to obtain nonsubjective esti-
mates of the respondents’ skin tone.
Third, in addition to issues related to measure-
ment, we argue that skin tone might not be the only
relevant physical characteristic in determining
socioeconomic outcomes. Ethnographic and exper-
imental evidence in Mexico has shown that facial
features signaling European, Indigenous, or
African ancestry (e.g., the type of nose, eyes, and
hair) are importantly associated with class in
Mexico (Krozer and Gómez 2023; Nutini 1997).
However, these other physical markers have not yet
been incorporated into survey studies, and thus
their relevance as predictors of socioeconomic out-
comes is still unknown. To test for this, we include
in our analysis measures of other phenotypical
characteristics (eye color and hair type) that might
be associated with socioeconomic outcomes inde-
pendently of skin tone.
Finally, we examine the role of socioeconomic
background in explaining the relationship between
skin tone and socioeconomic outcomes. We focus
on how contemporary patterns of socioeconomic
inequality by skin tone can be explained by two
distinct processes: inherited disadvantages, on the
one hand, and current mechanisms generating
inequality, on the other (Abascal and Garcia 2022;
Flores and Telles 2012). To measure socioeco-
nomic origins, we use a multidimensional index of
socioeconomic background that integrates three
dimensions: occupational status and educational
attainment of the main caregiver, and the economic
standing of the household when the respondent was
14 years old.
Our analysis includes four steps. First, we
assess the extent to which the skin tone distribution
captured by optical devices matches the color range
of the PERLA and PRODER color palettes.
Second, we compare the distribution of skin tone
captured by the PRODER palette with the one cap-
tured by the colorimeter. Third, we compare esti-
mates of the association between skin tone, other
Solís et al.
phenotypical characteristics, and socioeconomic
outcomes, with relevant controls for the colorime-
ter and PRODER color palette measurements.
Finally, we extend this comparison to previous
national surveys that use the PERLA color palette.
Our results show, first, that the PRODER color
palette provides a more realistic representation of
the skin tone distribution in Mexico. However,
there is a substantial discrepancy in skin tone mea-
surement between the colorimeter ratings and
interviewers’ classifications using the PRODER
palette. Second, despite these differences, we find
that the estimates of the association between skin
tone and socioeconomic outcomes are consistent
across data collection techniques and even across
surveys. These results, which use nonsubjective
skin tone measures for the first time, validate previ-
ous findings about the effects of these racialized
characteristics on socioeconomic outcomes. Third,
our results also show that around half of the overall
association between skin tone and socioeconomic
outcomes is explained by differences in socioeco-
nomic origins, a finding that emphasizes the impor-
tance of considering both historically accumulated
disadvantages and current mechanisms of generat-
ing inequality. Finally, we present evidence that
phenotypical characteristics other than skin tone
(eye and hair color) are significant predictors of
socioeconomic outcomes, even after adjusting for
socioeconomic origins and colorimeter measure-
ments. These findings suggest that rather than a
pigmentocracy, where light skin is the only element
or even the definitive one, ethnoracial stratification
in Latin America may be better characterized in a
broader sense: as one where people with a set of
racialized physical features linked to European ori-
gins have greater accumulated privilege and social
benefits than those with physical features linked to
Indigenous or Black ancestry.
Challenges And Issues
In Analysis Of The
Association Between
Skin Color And
Socioeconomic Outcomes
Measurement of Ethnoracial
Characteristics in Mexico
The measurement of skin tone in Mexican surveys
is a relatively recent innovation. As a consequence
of the nation-building project of mestizaje in
Mexico (Casas Martínez et al. 2014; Loveman
3
2014; Moreno Figueroa 2012; Saldívar 2014), the
inclusion of ethnoracial characteristics in official
government data has historically been scarce. For a
great part of the twentieth century, the ability to
speak an indigenous language was the only eth-
noracial criterion officially used to classify the
population in national statistics. This situation
changed in the 2000 Mexican Census, which
included a question about indigenous self-ascrip-
tion, and then in the 2020 Mexican Census, when a
question about African ancestry was also part of the
main questionnaire (Saldívar, Solís, and Arenas
2020). Skin color categories, however, were not
included.
The PERLA1 was a pioneering initiative that
collected ethnoracial information through national
surveys in various Latin American countries. One
of its main contributions was an 11-tone color pal-
ette used by interviewers to assign a skin color cat-
egory to the survey respondent. This was a crucial
innovation because it introduced for the first time
in a large quantitative survey the phenomenon of
skin color stratification, which had previously been
documented by anthropologists and historians (see
Friedlander 1975 for the case of Morelos; see
Gabbert 2001 for the case of Yucatan; see Nutini
1997 for the case of Central Mexico). The palette
has been used in other nationally representative
surveys, for example, the LAPOP Americas
Barometer, and in several national-level surveys
conducted in Mexico.
An important feature of the PERLA palette is
that it was designed with a special emphasis on the
dark end of the color spectrum (Dixon and Telles
2017:416). Although using a single palette is nec-
essary for comparison purposes across different
countries, we believe it may not adequately capture
within-country variation across Latin America. A
detailed gradient of dark skin tones can be very
useful in capturing the skin tone variation in Brazil
or Colombia, where there are considerable popula-
tions of dark-skinned people of African descent.
However, it might be less useful in countries like
Mexico, where a much larger proportion of the
population has a skin color in the mid-level tones,
where the PERLA palette is unable to register
important variations (cf. Telles et al. 2015:48).
These validity issues may introduce bias to esti-
mates of inequality.
The Endogeneity of Skin Color
Recent research has shown that ethnoracial classi-
fication and self-classification are not independent
4 Sociology of Race and Ethnicity 00(0)
of SES (McNamee 2020; Saperstein and Penner
2012; Schwartzman 2007; Telles and Paschel 2014;
Villarreal 2014; Villarreal and Bailey 2020). For
instance, Luisa Farah Schwartzman (2007) shows
that in interracial marriages between “Whites” and
“non-Whites” in Brazil, parents with higher educa-
tional levels tend to classify their children more as
“White.” Andrés Villarreal (2014) found a similar
pattern using data from the Mexican census:
Parents with higher educational levels who speak
an indigenous language tend to classify their chil-
dren as nonindigenous language speakers.
It is usually assumed that skin tone is a rela-
tively exogenous variable whose measurement is
not affected by social, nonphenotypical factors.
However, there is an emerging body of research,
mostly in the United States, showing that percep-
tions of skin color may be influenced by such fac-
tors, thus challenging this assumption. Using an
experimental design, Denia Garcia and Maria
Abascal (2016) found that photographs of people
are rated with darker skin tones when they are
assigned a Latino-sounding name. In a nationally
representative sample of U.S. residents, Ellis P.
Monk (2015) found that self reported skin tone is a
stronger predictor of perceived discrimination than
interviewer rated skin tone, implying that there are
different social interpretations attached to measure-
ments of skin tone (Roth 2016). Some recent stud-
ies have compared measurements with optical
devices to subjective measurements of skin tone to
gauge these social interpretations. Mara C. Ostfeld
and Nicole D. Yadon (2022) show that Latino
Trump supporters self-classify with lighter skin
tones than those measured by a spectrophotometer.
Employing a similar methodology and the same
data used in our study, Wendy D. Roth, Patricio
Solís, and Christina A. Sue (2022) show that
Mexicans with higher SES self-classify and are
classified by interviewers with lighter skin tones
than those captured by an optical device.
These findings demonstrate that the perception
of seemingly objective phenotypical features is
influenced by social and economic environments;
however, it is still unknown whether these misper-
ceptions meaningfully affect measures of the asso-
ciation between skin tone and socioeconomic
outcomes.
Beyond Skin Tone: Other Racialized
Phenotypical Characteristics
Skin tone may not be the only phenotypical charac-
teristic associated with ethnoracial inequality.
Other attributes, such as height (Vogl 2014), weight
(Campos-Vazquez and Nuñez 2018), the shape of
the face, and hair and eye color, are incorporated
along with skin tone into the racialized cognitive
schemes used in everyday life to identify, classify,
and provide differential treatment to individuals.
Ethnographic evidence (Krozer and Gómez 2023;
Nutini 1997) has documented that people with high
SES not only have lighter skin tones, but also have
a range of phenotypical characteristics associated
with a White European heritage. Similarly, there is
extensive evidence that people, mainly from lower
socioeconomic origins, experience discrimination
based on diverse phenotypical features associated
with an Indigenous or African descent (Castellanos
Guerrero 2005; Solís et al. 2019).
These phenotypical characteristics can be seen
as racial cues of “typicality” (Monk 2022; Monk,
Esposito, and Lee 2021) within stigmatized or
privileged ethnoracial groups. For example, a per-
son with brown skin and green eyes may receive
preferential treatment due to their perceived “atyp-
icality” compared to other brown-skinned indi-
viduals, suggesting a closer association with
whiteness, unlike someone with the same skin tone
but black eyes. This perception may even lead to a
mistaken perception of a lighter skin tone, poten-
tially resulting in an overestimation of its impact.
Therefore, it is crucial to consider these additional
phenotypical features. They can serve as signifi-
cant racial markers themselves and, given their
likely correlation with skin tone, may confound
the independent effect of skin tone on socioeco-
nomic outcomes.
Socioeconomic Origins
Previous research has highlighted the importance
of distinguishing between two contributing pro-
cesses to the current link between skin tone and
socioeconomic outcomes. First, individuals with
darker skin tones may face present-day discrimina-
tion in key social domains like education (Telles
et al. 2015) and the job market (Arceo-Gomez and
Campos-Vazquez 2014), leading to their disadvan-
taged socioeconomic position. Second, individuals
with racialized characteristics associated with
Indigenous or African descent may also experience
greater disadvantage due to past discrimination
faced by their families (Flores and Telles 2012;
Solís et al. 2019). In this sense, ethnoracial dispari-
ties in socioeconomic outcomes can also be
explained by mechanisms of class reproduction
and cumulative disadvantage.
Solís et al.
Previous studies have accounted for the latter
process by including parental socioeconomic back-
ground variables such as occupation (Flores and
Telles 2012; Telles et al. 2015), mother’s education
(Bailey, Fialho, and Penner 2016), or more recently,
parental education and household assets (Campos-
Vazquez and Medina-Cortina 2019). However,
these measurements have been unidimensional and
may underestimate the effect of historically cumu-
lative inequalities.
An advantage of our study is that it includes
more comprehensive measurements of parental
socioeconomic background, encompassing eco-
nomic, occupational, and educational dimensions.
Unlike other designs such as sibling models
(Abascal and Garcia 2022; Ryabov 2016), our data
cannot fully isolate the effects of socioeconomic
background. However, a thorough measurement of
socioeconomic origins can provide more robust
estimates of these cumulative historical effects.
Data And Methods
Our primary data source is the 2019 PRODER sur-
vey (n = 7,187). This nationally representative sur-
vey was designed to address topics associated with
racism, ethnoracial discrimination, and social
inequality. The sampled population consisted of indi-
viduals aged 25 to 64 years living in households.
Trained interviewers conducted computer-assisted
personal interviews in the respondents’ households.2
The questionnaire collected current economic,
educational, and occupational data from the
respondents, as well as information about their par-
ents (or the main wage earner in the household)
when respondents were 14 years old. It also
included a comprehensive set of questions about
the ethnoracial characteristics of the respondents,
including indigenous language, ethnoracial self-
identification, external identification, and physical
racialized attributes, particularly skin color.
Several methodological considerations con-
cerning skin color measurement in Mexico and
Latin America guided our approach in the PRODER
survey. The PERLA study, developed by Telles
(2014), introduced a color palette for measuring skin
tone in Latin American household surveys. While
this palette was originally designed for capturing skin
tone variations in various Latin American countries
like Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico, it encompassed a
wide spectrum of colors (see top panel of Figure 1).
Survey interviewers were provided with a printed
card displaying the color palette and were instructed
to classify respondents’ skin tone based on it. The
5
PERLA palette has been adopted in social surveys
in Mexico, notably in the 2016 Module of
Intergenerational Social Mobility (MMSI) and the
2017 ESRU Social Mobility Survey (EMOVI),
both of which relied on respondents’ self-classifi-
cations rather than interviewer appraisals.
The PERLA palette has significantly contrib-
uted to our understanding of skin color and social
inequality in Mexico and other Latin American
countries. However, it may have limitations in
representing the distribution of skin tones in the
Mexican population. National data collected by
PERLA, MMSI, and EMOVI allow us to evalu-
ate the actual distribution of skin tone obtained
with the PERLA palette (Supplemental Table
A1). This distribution reveals a concentration of
skin tone classifications in three colors of the
palette, with minimal usage of the darkest and
lightest colors. This concentration raises con-
cerns about the sensitivity of the PERLA palette
in capturing the full range of skin color varia-
tions in Mexico.
This led us to design the PRODER color palette,
specifically adapted to capture subtle variations in
skin color, and particularly skin lightness, in the
Mexican population (see bottom panel, Figure 1).
The initial reference for this palette was the Pantone
skin tone guide, which provides 110 variations of
skin tones ordered by lightness, hue, and undertone.3
This guide establishes a professional global standard
for skin color variations, ensuring accurate color
representation in each tone of the PRODER palette
for future replication. To maintain comparability
with the number of colors in the PERLA palette, the
PRODER palette includes 11 tones, selected accord-
ing to variations in lightness.
We then tested both the PRODER and PERLA
palettes in 19 focus groups conducted across differ-
ent regions of the country.4 We identified among
focus groups participants two reasons behind the
high concentration of cases in three colors of the
PERLA palette: First, the inclusion of very dark skin
tones aimed at capturing variations among people of
African descent, which are less prevalent in Mexico
compared to other Latin American countries; sec-
ond, the aversion toward the three lightest skin
tones, because they were perceived as an unnatural
pink color for human skin. On the other hand, in sev-
eral focus groups, participants encountered greater
difficulty in self-classifying their skin tone using the
PRODER palette. They explained that it took them
more effort to classify themselves within a more
nuanced spectrum of colors, while in the PERLA
scale they easily discarded most of the colors.
6
Figure 1. Perla and Proder palettes.
Note. PERLA = Project on Ethnicity and Race in Latin America; PRODER = Project on Ethnic-Racial Discrimination in Mexico.
Solís et al.
While the PRODER palette may improve the
accuracy of skin color classification, it does not
fully address potential measurement errors and
biases. Classification based on color palettes can be
influenced by external factors, such as lighting
conditions during the survey, and perception biases
associated with respondents’ gender, socioeco-
nomic attributes, or other physical characteristics.
To obtain more precise measurements and assess
the effects of measurement error and bias in color
palettes, we obtained direct measurements of
respondents’ skin color using portable pocket-size
digital optical colorimeters. Optical colorimeters
are color scanners equipped with their own light
source, providing highly accurate color measure-
ments (average ΔE < 1 on 2,000 colors) and a very
high interinstrument agreement (average ΔE <
0.3). Since colorimeter-based skin tone measures
are based on a digital scan with controlled lighting,
they are not influenced by interviewer subjective
biases and are less prone to measurement error.
The colorimeter was tested on a convenience
sample in Mexico City and in the 19 focus groups.
It was decided to collect measurements specifi-
cally from the inside of the wrist and the back of
the hand, as these areas are both exposed and
unexposed to the sun. While hand measurements
may slightly differ from what observers focus on
when assessing someone’s color, they are still rep-
resentative of natural facial skin tone and less
likely to be affected by makeup or bleaching
creams. In addition, measuring exposed areas cap-
tures the current perception, but may not accu-
rately reflect past perceptions. Therefore, the
average of the wrist and back of the hand mea-
surements was used as the final measurement of
respondents’ skin color5 (Dixon and Telles 2017;
Ostfeld and Yadon 2022).
Colorimeter skin tone measures were coded in
the CIELAB color space, which is recommended
for scientific classification of skin colors
(Weatherall and Coombs 1992). The CIELAB
color space decomposes color into three values: L*
for lightness ranging from 0 (black) to 100 (white),
a* for color variation from green, and b* for color
variation from blue to yellow. Dermatologists have
proposed an integrated measure of skin tone, called
the individual typological angle (ITA), based on
the L* and b* values (Del Bino and Bernerd 2013;
Ly et al. 2020):
 L* − 50  180
ITA = arctan  ×
 b*  π
7
Higher ITA values indicate lighter skin tones. We
utilize ITA to empirically test the relationship
between skin tone and socioeconomic outcomes.
Unlike continuous tridimensional colorimeter
skin tone ratings, color palette classifications are
discrete and limited to a specific number of colors
(11 colors for the PERLA and PRODER palettes).
We convert each color in the PRODER palette to its
corresponding CIELAB L*, a*, and b* values, and
then derive the ITA value. This enables us to obtain
a comparable ITA measure of skin tone across col-
orimeter and color palette measurements, facilitat-
ing a comparison of the magnitude of the
association between each measure and socioeco-
nomic outcomes.
Socioeconomic outcomes are measured using a
composite index referred to as “SES index,” which
combines household assets, goods, and services.6
The index was constructed using the first three
components of a polychoric principal component
analysis, accounting for 59 percent of the overall
variance. The components are weighted according
to their contribution to the total variance (29, 20,
and 10 percent, respectively) and then added to
obtain the final index. This composite index is a
valid proxy for permanent income level and house-
hold wealth (Filmer and Pritchett 2001).
In addition to examining the association
between skin tone and socioeconomic outcomes,
we also consider the influence of other physical
attributes and respondents’ background both as
independent determinants and potential confound-
ers of this association. Regarding physical attri-
butes, we use the classifications of eye and hair
color of the respondent made by interviewers in the
initial section of the PRODER survey. Respondents’
background is measured with three variables: rural/
urban residence, whether the respondent or their
parents speak an indigenous language, and a socio-
economic background index. The socioeconomic
background index, generated through a principal
component analysis, incorporates information on
the occupational status (Ganzeboom and Treiman
1996) and years of education of the primary eco-
nomic provider in the respondent’s household at
age 14, along with indicators of access to goods
and services at the same age. To account for
changes in access to goods and services across
birth cohorts, the index is standardized by quin-
quennial birth cohorts, thus reflecting the relative
SES of the respondents’ family of origin within
their cohort.
After analyzing skin lightness values obtained
from the colorimeter and the PRODER color
8 Sociology of Race and Ethnicity 00(0)

palette, as well as descriptive measures of the

association between eye and hair color and skin
tone, our focus shifts to examining the relation-
ship between skin tone and socioeconomic out-
comes. We employ the SES index as the dependent
variable, both as a continuous variable and
grouped into quintiles. Linear and multinomial
logit regression models are separately fitted, using
the skin lightness value obtained from the color-
imeter and the PRODER color palette as indepen-
dent variables. This allows us to evaluate the
association between colorimeter and color palette
measures of skin tone and socioeconomic out-
comes side by side.
Finally, we expand our analysis to three previ-
ous national surveys, comparing the PRODER
2019 colorimeter skin lightness coefficients with
those obtained using the PERLA color palette. The
three surveys are the original PERLA (2010) sur-
vey conducted by Telles et al., the 2016 MMSI car-
ried out by Instituto Nacional de Estadística y
Geografía (INEGI), and the 2017 EMOVI survey
by the Centro de Estudios Espinosa Yglesias
(CEEY). The PERLA survey introduced its color
palette to Latin America and is the only survey
among the three that includes interviewer-based
skin tone information. However, its sample size is
small (N = 1,000), and it lacks a comprehensive set
Figure 2. Distribution of skin color based on
of questions on socioeconomic background. In
optical colorimeter ratings.
contrast, the MMSI and EMOVI surveys have Note. Authors’ calculations. The PERLA and PRODER
much larger sample sizes (N = 25,000 and 17,700, color palette values are obtained from those shown
respectively) and include a comprehensive set of in Figure 1. PERLA = Project on Ethnicity and Race in
socioeconomic questions, but their data on skin Latin America; PRODER = Project on Ethnic-Racial
tone rely solely on the respondent’s self-classifica- Discrimination in Mexico; ITA = individual typological
angle.
tion using the PERLA palette.7 Despite these meth-
odological differences, it is possible to estimate
skin tone regression models across surveys and
b* colorimeter values. The graph defines six skin
utilize them to compare the estimated associations
lightness areas, based on a classification of ITA
between skin tone and socioeconomic outcomes.
values proposed by dermatologists (Ly et al. 2020).
As with the PRODER palette, we convert the
The median skin lightness value is 15.4°, classified
PERLA colors into skin lightness values, enabling
as “tan” by dermatologists. Only a small fraction of
direct comparisons with the colorimeter values
the sample falls into the classifications of “dark”
obtained in the PRODER survey.
(ITA <−30°) and “light” or “very light” (ITA
>41°).
Results The figure also includes markers representing
the colors in the PRODER (blue) and PERLA (red)
Comparing Colorimeter Ratings and color palettes. This enables an assessment of the
Interviewers’ Skin Tone Classifications coverage of both palettes compared to the actual
We begin with a descriptive analysis of skin tone distribution of skin lightness values in a representa-
measurements obtained from colorimeters and tive sample of the Mexican population. The PERLA
compare them with interviewers’ assessments color palette focuses on extreme values of skin
using color palettes. Figure 2 displays a scatterplot lightness, with 7 out of 11 categories situated at the
of cases in the PRODER survey based on L* and higher or lower ends. However, the central area of
Solís et al. 9

Table 1. Distribution of Interviewers’ Skin Color Classifications on the PRODER Palette, According to
ITA Quartiles.

ITA Quartiles

Interviewers’ Classification Q1 (Darkest Q4 (Lightest

on PRODER Palette Skin) Q2 Q3 Skin) Total
A 3.5 0.1 0.8 0.3 1.2
B 10.9 4.4 2.1 0.7 4.5
C 12.9 11.9 6.3 2.4 8.4
D 17.2 16.3 15.8 3.9 13.3
E 16.5 17.4 18.2 11.9 16.0
F 15.0 17.8 15.5 13.4 15.4
G 11.9 14.9 15.0 15.8 14.4
H 8.3 11.8 15.4 18.3 13.5
I 2.9 4.6 7.2 14.8 7.4
J 0.7 0.6 2.7 12.9 4.2
K 0.4 0.4 0.9 5.8 1.9
Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0

Note. Authors’ calculations. PRODER = Project on Ethnic-Racial Discrimination in Mexico; ITA = individual
typological angle.

the distribution is represented by only one PERLA
color (F). The adjacent PERLA colors (E and G)
are located at the extremes of the main cloud of
colorimeter-observed skin lightness values. The
colors in the PRODER palette align more closely
with the observed distribution. The central part of
the distribution encompasses four PRODER colors
(C–G), and the complete range of colors captures
the actual distribution of skin lightness values. It is
evident that the PRODER color palette provides a
more balanced representation of the population’s
skin tone variability in Mexico compared to the
PERLA palette.
A different question is whether interviewers
accurately classify respondents’ skin tone even
when using the more representative PRODER pal-
ette. Table 1 displays the distribution of interview-
ers’ classifications of respondents’ skin tone on the
PRODER palette, grouped by quartiles of skin
lightness values. The association between actual
skin tone, as measured by the colorimeter, and the
interviewers’ classifications on the PRODER pal-
ette is evident. Respondents with the darkest skin
tones, as rated by the colorimeter, were more likely
to be classified by interviewers in the darkest col-
ors of the PRODER palette (44.5 percent were
classified in the A–D tones). Similarly, respondents
with the lightest skin tones, as rated by the colorim-
eter, were more frequently classified in the lightest
skin tones of the PRODER palette (51.8 percent in
the H–K tones). However, there are also important
discrepancies between colorimeter ratings and
interviewers’ classifications. These differences are
in part explained by socioeconomic whitening. For
a detailed analysis of how socioeconomic whiten-
ing and other factors affect skin color appraisals in
the PRODER survey, see Roth et al. (2022).
Other Physical Attributes and Skin Tone
Skin tone may not be the only physical attribute
linked to ethnoracial inequality. Other physical
attributes, combined with skin tone, may influ-
ence racialized cognitive schemes used in every-
day life to identify, classify, and provide
differential treatment to individuals. Moreover,
given their correlation with skin tone, excluding
these attributes in the analysis can result in biases
when estimating the independent effects of skin
tone.
In this study, we examine two additional physi-
cal attributes: hair and eye color. Table 2 displays
the distributions of these attributes in the Mexican
population, along with average skin lightness and
SES values. Black hair is the most common (46.2
percent), followed by brown hair (36.5 percent). A
small percentage has natural blond hair (2.7 per-
cent), and 7.1 percent have dyed blond hair. Brown
eyes are predominant (54.7 percent), while black
eyes are next (40.9 percent). Green eyes are
10 Sociology of Race and Ethnicity 00(0)

Table 2. Physical Attributes and Association indigenous language or have parents who do so
with Skin Tone and Socioeconomic Status. (26.2 vs 10.2 percent).
Given our interest in evaluating the association
Hair Color % ITA (M) SES (M) between skin tone and socioeconomic outcomes,
Black 46.2 −0.27 −0.23 our statistical models must consider these other
Brown 36.5 0.19 0.15 characteristics. Although we lack appropriate data
 Natural blond 2.7 0.95 0.64 to fully identify the effects of the background of the
respondents, these models allow us to better esti-
Dyed blond 7.1 0.45 0.39
mate the extent to which the current association
Bald 1.5 0.11 0.21
between skin tone and socioeconomic outcomes is
 Gray 4.7 −0.15 −0.03
explained by the historical accumulation of disad-
Other 1.2 0.40 0.17
vantage compared to contemporary inequality-gen-
Eye Color % ITA (M) SES (M) erating mechanisms, such as discrimination.
Black 40.9 −0.27 −0.23
Brown 54.7 0.12 0.12
 Green or blue 4.4 1.03 0.68 Regression Models
Table 4 displays the descriptive statistics for all
Note. Authors’ calculations. ITA = individual typological
angle; SES = socioeconomic status; M = mean.
variables in the regression models, excluding eye
and hair color (presented in Table 2). Table 5 pres-
ents the results of linear regression models, with
reported for only 3.6 percent of respondents, and the SES index as the dependent variable and skin
less than 1 percent are classified with blue eyes. lightness and other relevant variables as indepen-
There is a clear association among hair and eye dent variables.8 The left panel shows the models
color, skin tone, and SES. Respondents with black with skin lightness measurements from the color-
hair and eyes exhibit darker skin tones and lower imeter, and the right panel shows the models with
SES. Conversely, the minority of respondents with skin lightness measurements from the interview-
naturally blond hair and blue eyes display the high- er’s assessment using the PRODER color palette.
est average skin lightness and SES values. This The first model includes only skin lightness values
suggests that hair and eye color are not only associ- and basic sociodemographic controls. The second
ated with skin tone but also with SES, which gives model introduces additional physical attributes,
support to the idea that these physical attributes and the third model adds background characteris-
must be considered along with skin tone as inde- tics, including the socioeconomic background
pendent predictors of SES. index. This allows us to assess the independent
coefficients of eye color, hair color, and back-
ground variables and examine how their inclusion
Skin Tone and Respondents’ in the models affects skin lightness coefficients.
Background The skin lightness coefficients for the colorim-
Based on previous research, we know that the asso- eter and PRODER palette are similar across mod-
ciation between skin tone and socioeconomic out- els. In the first model, the estimated coefficients are
comes may be partially explained by other 0.243 for the colorimeter and 0.260 for the
socioeconomic, regional, and ethnic background PRODER palette. In the third model, which
characteristics associated with skin tone. In Table includes controls for eye and hair color and back-
3, we present a descriptive view of this association. ground variables, these coefficients decrease to
Respondents with the darkest skin (Quartile 1 of 0.080 and 0.073, respectively. In the following sec-
ITA) were raised in families with lower SES: 27.2 tions we discuss this unexpected result. Since the
percent were in the lowest quintile of the socioeco- results from the colorimeter and PRODER palette
nomic background index, compared to 15.62 per- models are comparable, we focus our discussion on
cent in the highest quintile. In contrast, 11.4 percent the colorimeter models.
of respondents with the lightest skin tones (Quartile The estimated coefficients for skin tone in the
5 of ITA) came from the lowest socioeconomic regression models suggest that a significant portion
background quintile and 30.5 percent from the of the association between skin tone and socioeco-
highest quintile. In addition, respondents in the nomic attributes can be explained by other physical
darkest skin tone quartile were more likely to reside attributes such as eye and hair color. In the second
in rural areas (35.9 vs 19.8 percent) and speak an model, which includes eye and hair color, the
Solís et al. 11

Table 3. Skin Tone and Respondents’ Background, Mexico 2019.

Skin Tone (ITA % in Q1 Socio- % in Q5 Socio- % % Respondent or Parent

Quartiles) economic Background economic Background Rural Speaker of Indigenous Language
Q1 27.2 11.4 36.0 26.2
Q2 20.4 16.1 30.6 19.9
Q3 16.8 21.8 25.4 15.9
Q4 15.6 30.6 19.9 10.2

Note. Authors’ calculations. ITA = individual typological angle.

Table 4. Descriptive Statistics of Main Variables.

Variable M/% SD Minimum Maximum

Skin lightness—colorimeter (Std.) 0.0 1.0 −4.6 3.5
Skin lightness—PRODER palette (Std.) 0.0 1.0 −2.9 1.9
Socioeconomic background 0.0 1.0 −2.1 4.0
Socioeconomic status 0.0 1.0 −2.3 2.9
Female 51.9 — — —
Age 41.5 10.8 25.0 64.0
Marital status
Married/cohabitation 66.3 — — —
Divorced/separated 6.6 — — —
Widow 6.6 — — —
Single 20.5 — — —
Indigenous language
Respondent not speaker 82.0 — — —
At least one parent speaker 7.3 — — —
Respondent speaks indigenous language 10.7 — — —
Rural 27.9 — — —

Note. PRODER = Project on Ethnic-Racial Discrimination in Mexico; SD = standard deviation; M = mean.

coefficient for skin lightness decreases from 0.243
to 0.169, indicating a reduction in the initial asso-
ciation. In addition, the inclusion of eye and hair
color improves the goodness of fit, with the R2
increasing from .068 to .114.
Eye color and hair color not only modify the
coefficient for skin tone but also have their own
independent association with socioeconomic
outcomes. Even after controlling for background
variables, respondents with brown, green, and
blue eyes show positive and statistically signifi-
cant coefficients (0.092, 0.176, and 0.307,
respectively) compared to those with black eyes.
A similar association is observed for hair color,
where respondents with blond hair have an aver-
age SES index that is 0.279 higher than those
with black hair. Remarkably, respondents with
dyed blond hair exhibit a similar coefficient,
suggesting either a reverse causality path, with
individuals with higher SES choosing to dye
their hair, or perhaps that individuals who lighten
their hair may be effectively shaping their socio-
economic experiences by adapting to a racist
environment.9
When background variables are included in the
model (Models 3 and 6), the coefficient for skin
lightness further decreases from 0.169 to 0.080.
Socioeconomic background emerges as the most
influential predictor, with a coefficient of 0.457,
indicating its strong association with socioeco-
nomic outcomes. Rural residence also plays a sig-
nificant role, with a coefficient of −0.579, suggesting
a disadvantage for individuals residing in rural
areas. The coefficients for indigenous language
indicate that individuals who speak indigenous lan-
guages face a disadvantage in socioeconomic out-
comes, with a coefficient of −0.155 compared to
those who do not speak indigenous languages.
12 Sociology of Race and Ethnicity 00(0)

Table 5. Regression Models Predicting Socioeconomic Status.

Optical Colorimeter PRODER Color Palette

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

ITA (standardized) 0.243*** 0.169*** 0.080*** 0.260*** 0.179*** 0.073***
(0.017) (0.018) (0.013) (0.018) (0.019) (0.014)
Sex (Ref.: male)
Female −0.169*** −0.231*** −0.172*** −0.171*** −0.229*** −0.169***
(0.035) (0.034) (0.026) (0.034) (0.034) (0.026)
Age
−0.000 −0.000 −0.004** −0.001 −0.001 −0.004**
(0.002) (0.002) (0.001) (0.002) (0.002) (0.001)
Marital status (Ref.: married/cohabiting)
Divorced/separated −0.058 −0.072 −0.136** −0.049 −0.066 −0.134**
(0.069) (0.068) (0.050) (0.068) (0.068) (0.051)
Widowed −0.255*** −0.270*** −0.162** −0.181** −0.216** −0.140**
(0.068) (0.066) (0.049) (0.069) (0.066) (0.050)
Single 0.045 0.022 −0.115*** 0.061 0.036 −0.109***
(0.044) (0.043) (0.031) (0.044) (0.043) (0.031)
Eye color (Ref.: black)
Brown 0.179*** 0.092** 0.162*** 0.087**
(0.036) (0.028) (0.037) (0.028)
 Green or blue 0.487*** 0.198** 0.466*** 0.199**
(0.096) (0.063) (0.095) (0.063)
Hair color (Ref.: black)
Brown 0.225*** 0.037 0.217*** 0.037
(0.040) (0.031) (0.040) (0.031)
 Natural blond 0.497*** 0.279*** 0.475*** 0.278***
(0.115) (0.080) (0.114) (0.080)
Dyed blond 0.481*** 0.245*** 0.462*** 0.243***
(0.071) (0.054) (0.070) (0.054)
Bald 0.210 0.122 0.203 0.124
(0.108) (0.078) (0.115) (0.080)
 Gray 0.179* 0.089 0.156* 0.081
(0.077) (0.061) (0.078) (0.060)
Other 0.244* 0.029 0.235* 0.031
(0.096) (0.106) (0.095) (0.105)
Rural/urban residence (Ref.: urban) −0.579*** −0.581***
Rural (0.032) (0.032)
Indigenous language (Ref.: not speaker) 0.153** 0.145**
Parent (0.048) (0.048)
Respondent −0.155*** −0.151***
(0.045) (0.045)
Socioeconomic background 0.457*** 0.456***
(0.014) (0.014)
Constant 0.100 −0.106 0.362*** 0.116 −0.086 0.368***
(0.079) (0.082) (0.061) (0.078) (0.082) (0.060)
No. of observations 7,136 7,136 7,136 7,136 7,136 7,136
R2 .068 .114 .445 .076 .116 .444

Note. Authors’ calculations. Standard errors in parentheses. PRODER = Project on Ethnic-Racial Discrimination in
Mexico; ITA = individual typological angle.
*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. Two-tailed tests.
Solís et al. 13

Figure 3. Predicted probabilities of socioeconomic outcomes (quintiles), by colorimeter and PRODER

color palettes.
Note. Authors’ calculations, using the multinomial logistic regression results equivalent to the linear regression from
Table 4, Column 3. The dark bar uses the fifth and the light bar the 95th ITA percentile. The rest of the variables are
evaluated at their mean. PRODER = Project on Ethnic-Racial Discrimination in Mexico; ITA = individual typological
angle.

However, individuals who do not speak indigenous
languages but have parents who do show a posi-
tive coefficient, possibly indicating positive
selectivity in terms of upward social mobility (see
Villarreal 2014).
The comparison between the coefficients of
socioeconomic background and skin lightness
(0.457 vs 0.080) provides a perspective on the rela-
tive magnitude of the associations with socioeco-
nomic outcomes. While socioeconomic background
takes precedence in importance, the association
between skin tone and socioeconomic outcomes
remains significant. To further evaluate the magni-
tude of this association, multinomial logit models
are used to estimate the probabilities of different
socioeconomic outcomes for respondents in the
fifth and 95th skin lightness percentiles of the col-
orimeter and the PRODER palette, holding all
other variables in Models 3 at 6 at their mean val-
ues (Figure 3). The results reveal important differ-
ences in predicted outcomes. For example, in the
colorimeter model the estimated probability of an
outcome in the lowest socioeconomic quintile is
only 0.07 for respondents with the lightest skin
tones, against 0.19 for those in darkest percentiles.
Similarly, in the color palette model, the former
probability is .09 and the latter is .17.
Previous Studies Using the PERLA Color
Palette
So far, our analysis has been based solely on data
from the 2019 PRODER survey. To obtain more
robust conclusions, we conducted a comparative
analysis by adjusting linear regression models for
three other recent national surveys that utilized the
PERLA color palette: the original PERLA survey
(2011), the MMSI (2016), and the EMOVI (2017).
While the PERLA survey has limited variables on
socioeconomic background and is only partially
comparable, the other two surveys include compre-
hensive questions on socioeconomic background
and other relevant variables that are fully compa-
rable to PRODER. This allows us to obtain
14 Sociology of Race and Ethnicity 00(0)

Figure 4. Estimated coefficients of skin tone on socioeconomic outcomes.

Note. Own estimates using EMOVI (2017), MMSI (2016), PERLA (2014), and PRODER (2019). EMOVI = ESRU Social
Mobility Survey; MMSI = Module of Intergenerational Social Mobility; PERLA = Project on Ethnicity and Race in Latin
America; PRODER = Project on Ethnic-Racial Discrimination in Mexico.

comparable models, with minor adjustments to the
specifications.
It is important to note that eye and hair color
information is not included in these earlier surveys,
as they do not collect such data. Another difference
among these surveys is in who reports skin tone:
The MMSI and EMOVI surveys rely on respon-
dents’ self-classification using the PERLA palette,
while the PERLA survey relies on interviewers’
classifications. This difference may introduce varia-
tions because individuals might classify themselves
differently from how interviewers classify them.
Despite these considerations, contrasting these sur-
veys is valuable for expanding our conclusions
regarding the association between skin tone and
socioeconomic outcomes using colorimeter versus
color palette methodologies.
Figure 4 presents the standardized linear
regression skin lightness coefficients for each of
these surveys.10 The regression for the PRODER
survey includes two coefficients: one for colorim-
eter-based measures and the other for the PRODER
palette. The results show a consistent pattern
across all surveys. The point estimates for both
PRODER measures are consistently higher,
although the confidence intervals indicate that
these differences are not statistically significant.
Thus, despite the PERLA color palette not ade-
quately representing the actual distribution of skin
tone in the Mexican population, as shown in Figure
2, the estimated association between skin tone and
socioeconomic outcomes remains consistent
across different data collection methods, color pal-
ettes, and surveys.
Discussion And
Conclusion
In this study, we reassessed the association between
ethnoracial characteristics and socioeconomic out-
comes in Mexico using a novel nationally represen-
tative survey. This survey included measurements
of skin color based on digital colorimeters, eye and
hair color, and detailed information on socioeco-
nomic origins and destinations. Our findings con-
tribute substantially to the field of racial and social
stratification in Mexico and Latin America, particu-
larly regarding the relationship between skin tone,
other physical attributes, and socioeconomic out-
comes. Here, we highlight five key contributions.
First, in line with previous research (Campos-
Vazquez and Medina-Cortina 2019; Solís and
Güémez 2020; Telles et al. 2015), our results con-
firm that skin tone has a statistically significant and
substantial association with socioeconomic out-
comes in Mexico. We introduced two methodologi-
cal innovations that might contribute to provide
more solid measures of this association: a new
color palette, which is more representative of the
variation in skin tone observed in the Mexican pop-
ulation, and an alternative measure of skin tone
based on optical colorimeters, which is indepen-
dent of subjective appraisals and therefore of
Solís et al.
socioeconomic bias. Our results are consistent with
those obtained in previous research based on the
PERLA color palette, and therefore show that the
association between skin tone and socioeconomic
outcomes reported in previous studies is robust and
relatively independent of the methodologies used
to measure skin color. Although this association is
secondary to that of socioeconomic background, it
is still substantial in terms of its conditioning on the
probabilities of reaching the highest or lowest
socioeconomic quintiles. This supports the notion
that skin tone is an important ascriptive character-
istic that contributes to explain inequality of oppor-
tunity in Mexico.
Second, we provide novel evidence about how
other physical attributes, which have not been for-
mally considered in previous quantitative research
on race and social stratification in Mexico and Latin
America, may play an important role in generating
social inequality, independently of skin tone. Our
results show that eye color and hair color not only
have an independent association with socioeco-
nomic outcomes, but also that the coefficients for
skin tone are substantially attenuated after control-
ling for these attributes. This finding supports a
body of research which highlights the importance of
considering skin tone as only one component of a
broader set of external physical attributes associated
to ethnoracial discrimination and social inequality
(Monk 2022; Nutini 1997; Schachter, Flores, and
Maghbouleh 2021).
These results suggest that, more than a strict
“pigmentocracy,” where skin color is the only or
the most important racialized physical characteris-
tic associated with socioeconomic outcomes, racial
stratification in Mexico may be better character-
ized in a broader sense: as one where a set of racial-
ized physical features linked to European origins,
as opposed to Indigenous or African origins, are
associated with greater accumulated privilege and
socioeconomic opportunities. This perspective
opens a new line of research that could delve into
the mechanisms driving this general statistical
association and, in general, the role of these charac-
teristics in specific interpersonal and organiza-
tional contexts such as labor market discrimination
or union formation (Arceo-Gomez and Campos-
Vazquez 2014; Campos-Vazquez and Nuñez 2018;
Güémez and Solís 2022). Future research should
advance in a more detailed analysis of how these
and other racialized physical characteristics (e.g.,
type of nose, height, and perhaps even weight),
independently or in interaction with skin tone,
affect ethnoracial social identification and
15
categorization and prompt different mechanisms of
discrimination. A promising area of research in this
topic is dating applications, where individuals’
physical appearance plays an important role in suc-
cessful “matching” and therefore the conjoint
effect of a series of racialized physical attributes
can be analyzed. Another topic for future research
is whether differences in other physical attributes
have effects on a variety of outcomes for individu-
als with similar skin tones.
A third finding is that a substantial part of the
association between socioeconomic outcomes, skin
tone, and other physical attributes is explained by
their association with contextual socioeconomic
characteristics, and most importantly with socio-
economic background. More specifically, our mod-
els show that approximately half of the association
which might initially be attributed to skin tone are
explained by this indirect path. The magnitude of
this association is significantly higher than those
presented by previous studies (Bailey et al. 2016;
Flores and Telles 2012). For instance, Stanley R.
Bailey et al. (2016) report a change of approxi-
mately 5 percent in the coefficient before and after
controlling for the educational attainment of their
respondents’ mothers. This may be explained by
the relative weakness of the measurements of
socioeconomic background in these studies, which
are mostly unidimensional (either parental occupa-
tion or parental education) and do not consider the
economic position of the family of origin.
This result reinforces the notion that to under-
stand ethnoracial stratification, it is crucial to con-
sider both the cumulated disadvantages from past
discrimination—expressed in the differences in
socioeconomic background across ethnoracial
characteristics including skin tone—and current
inequality-generating mechanisms such as skin
tone discrimination (Flores and Telles 2012; Solís
and Güémez 2020). The effects of these two pro-
cesses on contemporary inequality might be of
similar magnitude. However, a limitation of this
article is that our data source may not allow us to
fully capture the full effects of unobserved differ-
ences in respondents’ background. Future research
should consider the use of more suitable data and
methods that can provide better estimates of such
effects, such as sibling models (Abascal and Garcia
2022).
Fourth, there are several methodological aspects
regarding the measurement of skin tone and its
relationship with socioeconomic outcomes that
deserve further discussion and may open new ave-
nues for future research. Our methodological
16
analysis indicates that the PERLA palette may not
capture important variations in the distribution of
skin tone in Mexico. We designed an alternative
color palette, which provides a more representative
distribution of skin tones and therefore may poten-
tially improve the measurement of skin tone. In
addition, given that, independently of their color
representativeness, both palettes may be affected
by subjective perception bias, we introduced an
alternative measurement of skin lightness, based
on optical colorimeters.
Despite these shortcomings, the overall esti-
mates of the coefficients for socioeconomic out-
comes based on the PRODER palette are similar to
those obtained by PERLA in previous studies,
regardless of whether skin tone appraisals were
obtained from external sources (interviewers) or
respondents’ self-classification. As we mentioned
before, this finding is important because it vali-
dates the use of the PERLA palette to estimate the
magnitude of the overall association between skin
tone and socioeconomic outcomes. However, a
question that remains unanswered is why the
PERLA and PRODER coefficients are similar. A
possible explanation is that, despite its limitations
in capturing variations in skin tones at the central
part of the distribution, PERLA efficiently captures
differences at the extremes, which are most impor-
tant for measuring inequality in socioeconomic
outcomes. If this is the case, the advantages of the
PRODER palette in measuring skin tone variations
in the middle region of the distribution may be
irrelevant for estimating socioeconomic effects.
Another possible explanation is that the overall
estimated association, summarized in a single
regression coefficient for each palette in our analy-
sis, conceals substantial differences in local effects
across various regions of both color palettes. Future
research should investigate these possible explana-
tions, as well as potential differences between the
two palettes in other outcomes such as education,
health, and discrimination. This could contribute to
a more comprehensive assessment of the similari-
ties and differences between the two skin tone
palettes.
Finally, another unexpected finding is that the
estimates from both the PERLA and PRODER pal-
ettes are also similar to those obtained from the col-
orimeter. This is particularly intriguing because we
have established that, despite being correlated, mea-
sures based on the color palette and the colorimeter
are considerably different. In addition, there are
solid reasons to believe that these differences are at
least partly explained by socioeconomic lightening
Sociology of Race and Ethnicity 00(0)
(Roth et al. 2022), which should lead to an overesti-
mation of the association with socioeconomic out-
comes. Perhaps these socioeconomic lightening
effects are not strong enough to substantially affect
the overall estimates. In any case, to understand this
unexpected result, future studies should introduce
methodological innovations that allow us to isolate
the biases introduced by socioeconomic lightening
in measures obtained with color palettes. Two pos-
sible alternatives are instrumental variables, which
might help to control for the endogeneity intro-
duced by socioeconomic lightening, or longitudinal
studies, which could identify changes in percep-
tions of skin tone associated with social mobility
and subsequently analyze how these changes affect
estimates of the association between skin tone and
socioeconomic outcomes.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial
support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of
this article: This study is a project of El Colegio de
México, with funding from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation
and Oxfam México.
ORCID iDs
Patricio Solís https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9470-8362
Braulio Güémez https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6774-
5013
Supplemental Material
Supplemental material for this article is available online.
Notes
1. More information in https://perla.princeton.edu/
about/
2. More details on the conceptual design, the sample
design, and the technical aspects of the application of
the PRODER survey can be consulted here:https://
discriminacion.colmex.mx/?page_id=4655
3. https://www.pantone.com/articles/product-spot-
light/skintone-guide-revealing-the-new-pantone-
skintone-guide.
4. During the first semester of 2019, we conducted 19
focus groups (six persons per group, three males and
three females) in Mexico City, Mérida, Monterrey,
and Oaxaca City, as well as in select towns within
Yucatán state. Within each city, we organized three
focus groups, representing individuals with low,
medium, and high SES. In addition, we formed an
extra group consisting of individuals with medium
SES who possessed ethnic or racialized physical
traits that rendered them susceptible to racism and
Solís et al.
discrimination. The primary purpose of these focus
groups was to obtain information on how respon-
dents use ethnic and racial categories and perceive
racism and ethnoracial discrimination. However,
we also utilized these focus groups to pilot test cer-
tain questions and scales later incorporated into the
survey.
5. However, we also adjusted separate models for wrist
and back of the hand measures. Results (not shown)
are substantially similar to those reported here.
6. The items in the index were: refrigerator, iron,
blender, gas or electric stove, washing machine,
cable television, telephone, DVD/Blu-ray player,
microwave, fan, videogame console, toaster,
Internet access, number of lightbulbs, printer, car,
property or real estate, and the number of household
members divided by the number of bedrooms.
7. See Supplemental Table A2 for further technical
data on these surveys.
8. To check for robustness, we also adjusted mod-
els with two alternative specifications. First, we
adjusted multinomial logit models, using the quin-
tiles of the SES index as the dependent variable.
Second, to test for possible interviewer effects, we
fitted hierarchical mixed regression model includ-
ing a random intercept term that captures unob-
served heterogeneity among interviewers. In both
cases, results are consistent with those obtained
with linear regression models. To simplify the pre-
sentation, we only discuss the full results of the lin-
ear regression models.
9. We thank an anonymous reviewer for suggesting
this latter explanation.
10. The complete models are presented in Supplemental
Table A3.
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Author Biographies
Patricio Solís is a professor at the Center for Sociological
Studies of El Colegio de México. In his research, he exam-
ines social mobility, educational inequalities, discrimina-
tion, and other processes leading to the intergenerational
reproduction of social inequality in Mexico and Latin
19
America. He is currently the principal investigator of the
Project on Racial-Ethnic Discrimination in Mexico
(PRODER). His work has been published in journals such
as American Sociological Review, Demography, Latin
American Research Review, and Population Research and
Policy Review.
Braulio Güémez is a PhD student in sociology at Duke
University. He studies class and ethnoracial stratification
in Mexico and Latin America. His work has been pub-
lished in Population Research and Policy Review and
Estudios Demograficos y Urbanos.
Raymundo M. Campos-Vázquez is a professor at the
Center for Economic Studies of El Colegio de México.
His research areas are labor economics, public sector eco-
nomics, and development economics. His work has been
published in journals such as American Economic Review,
Demography, Oxford Development Studies, and El
Trimestre Economico.