Women, according to Chairman Mao, hold up half the sky—but in California some are better rewarded for this effort than others. According to a new study from the Public Policy Institute of California, Asian women born in the United States outstrip all their sisters in terms of earning power. The average hourly wage for American-born Asian ladies in 2001(the latest year with reliable figures) was $19.30, with American-born whites coming next. On the bottom rungs of the ladder came Latinas: if born abroad, they earned a mere $10.40 an hour (though this was comfortably above California's then $6.25 minimum wage) if born in America, they managed $15.10 an hour. Education is the biggest reason for the ethnic disparities. Some 55% of California's American-born Asian women have at least a bachelor's degree, and an impressive 84% of them either have jobs or are looking for them. By contrast, only 14% of American-born Hispanic women have a bachelor's degree and only 74% of them are in the labour market. Meanwhile, Latinas born abroad are often condemned to low-paying jobs by an even inefficient education or a poor knowledge of English. Much the same can be said of Asian women born in South-East Asia, a category that includes refugees from Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia. The institute calculates that they earned an average of $15.80, almost $1 less than other foreign-born Asians. But education is not the only factor in play for California's women. Larger families make it more difficult for Latinas to go out to work in the first place blacks often live too far away to commute to well-paid jobs and just as Asians may benefit from high expectations, so other groups may suffer from low ones. The institute makes an attempt, heroic or politically correct, to adjust for such factors, imagining, for example, that a foreign-born Latina has the same family structure, education and place of residence as the average Californian woman. That brings the average wage for foreign-born Latinas up to a more respectable $15.20 yet American-born Asians still rule the roost. But before the golden girls get too happy, the institute reckons that Californian women of all sorts tend to earn roughly 20% less than their menfolk do. What can be inferred from '...in California some are better rewarded for this effort than others'?