[lycidas]

Despite the lack of content in the article, this post seems have to attracted a few comments. Before everyone comes in here with explanations of "oh it is because Asians work harder, are smarter, and have better culture" argument - thus not only further propagating the harmful model minority stereotype but also implying that certain other races aren't as smart or don't have 'good' culture - I'd like to propose it is simply because of socioeconomic status and selection effect.

Your adult income levels is heavily correlated to the socioeconomic status of the family you grew up in. Asian Americans have the highest average family income out of any major immigrant groups because Asia is a huge place with many wealthy and educated citizens who then decide to immigrate over to America. The selection effect comes from the fact that the people who do immigrate from Asia are usually either wealthy or well educated or both, because the lack of these factors prevent poorer families from doing so. These families then have higher than average socioeconomic status and their children go on to become well educated and get better paying jobs (1). As for why Asian Men are specifically higher earning, we still live in a non post gender world. For an example of institutionalized sexism in tech I would recommend this recent documentary that just came out (2). As a last point, income isn't everything. Asian Americans, though facing less severe issues than other minority groups in America, still have to deal with everyday issues such as the model minority stereotype or with being perceived as the perpetual foreigner.

(1) Education and Immigration - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0745648320. This is a great read about how basically everything people associate with immigrants comes down to socioeconomic status.

(2) http://www.codedocumentary.com/ - Documentary about females and minorities or lack thereof in tech.

[omonra]

I'm afraid the 'asians are smarter, work harder and have better culture' makes a whole lot more sense.

Let's leave US and look at Asia instead - compare performance of Japan/Korea/Taiwan (can also through in Singapore and HK) and more recently China to other countries (Indonesia/Philippines/Malaysia/Thailand etc) post WW2. They all started out dirt poor yet some countries have made tremendous progress while others are still pretty undeveloped.