E/CN.4/2005/21 page 7 29. Overall, fewer women than men occupied the top professional and managerial jobs, but Chinese women were twice as likely as Whites to be in the top occupational group; this was the case for over 1 in 10 of all South Asian women and 1 in 20 Caribbean women. Generally, job levels and occupations of both men and women were correlated with academic qualifications, albeit not always, thus revealing discrimination. 30. Regarding the United States of America, the census was published every 10 years and since 2000, it identified 15 racial/ethnic groups: “Whites”, “Blacks” or “African Americans” or “Negros”; “American Indians” or “Alaska Native”; “Asian Indian”; “Chinese”: “Filipino”; “Japanese”; “Korean”; “Vietnamese”; “Other Asian”; “Native Hawaiian”; “Guamanian” or “Chamorro”; “Samoan”; “Other Pacific Islander”; and “Some Other Race”. 31. Unlike Brazil, in the United States of America, it was the notion of “race”, not “colour”, which prevailed. Ethnic/racial economic disparities remained very large, although African-American economic elites have emerged since the enactment of the Civil Rights Act in 1964. When looking at poverty trends for “African Americans”, “Hispanics” and “Whites” between 1970 and 1999, few changes had occurred for any of the groups until the early 1990s. Conversely, the economic boom of the 1990s helped reduce poverty significantly: the incidence of poverty among African Americans dropped from 31 to 21 per cent, among Hispanics from 27 to 20 per cent and among Whites from 9 to 7 per cent. 32. Declines in poverty were matched by a spectacular increase (at a higher rate than the rate at which poverty had fallen) for all groups in the proportion of affluent people during the 1990s. The economic boom of the 1990s raised the living standards of all three groups in absolute terms and those of African Americans and Hispanics relative to whites. But income disparities remained large: during the 1990s black income never reached two-thirds of white income. In the downturn from 2000 to 2002, annual income losses were 2.4 per cent for blacks and 2.5 per cent for Hispanics, compared to 0.7 per cent for whites. 33. Ms. Tomei concluded that racial differences and racism were a universal phenomenon, but their manifestations and intensity varied by country and over time, according to national historical circumstances, economic contexts and policy frameworks. Collecting regular, accurate and reliable data on the relative socio-economic status of subordinate racial/ethnic groups, and their gender dimensions, was a key to eliminating racial discrimination. 34. Mr. Chris Alando, a member of the Advisory Board of the NGO World Vision, gave a presentation entitled “Macroeconomics and ethnicity: monitoring global Afro-descendant employment”. He began his presentation by referring to the Millennium Summit and the eight Millennium Development Goals. 35. Mr. Alando declared that the ambitious targets for these Goals would remain meaningless unless social impediments to human development, including racism, were tackled. He provided and examined some statistical data and indicators in the field of employment among people of African descent from a macroeconomic development as well as programme monitoring and evaluation points of view. He concluded that statistical data and indicators on employment amongst people of African descent within global labour markets revealed that they were discriminated against in mixed societies, and at a rate that had generally surpassed discrimination based on gender.