Race and Gender Discrimination

Race and Gender Discrimination

Chelsea Thoutt

Chang Wang

Natalie Pace

Fahad Alhosani

In Schools and the Workplace

Mitigating Discrimination in Schools and the Workplace

Title VII Civil Rights Act (1964)

Evidence of Discrimination and Its Effects

• Prohibits employers from discriminating based on:
• Race
• Color
• Religion
• Sex
• National origin
• Applies to organizations that employ 15 or more persons.

Equal employment

opportunity

Effects of Government

Policies and Equal Employment Opportunity

By Gender

Process

Summary of Equal Opportunity Legislation

the condition in which all individuals have an equal chance for employment, regardless of their race, color, religion, sex, age, disability, or national origin.

Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA)

• Description of all jobs within organization.
• Rate each job according to all the features that are believed to determine pay differences.
• Ratings combined to create score for each job to help determine wages.

Human resource management is regulated by the three branches of government:

• Legislative branch develops and enacts laws
• Executive branch and its regulatory agencies implement the laws
• Judicial branch hears cases related to employment and interprets the law

• Prohibits discrimination against workers who are over the age of 40.
• Age discrimination complaints make up a large percentage of the complaints filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).

Job Evaluation

Educational Differences

BiologicalDifferences between Genders

• Used to determine pay rates.
• Promotions, upgrading of the existing workforce of the firm.
• Causes wages to be less responsive to changes in market conditions than they would be.

Conclusion

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is responsible for enforcing most of the EEO laws. It investigates and resolves complaints, gathers information, and issues guidelines.

Occupational and

Educational

Differences In

Race and Gender

The federal government’s

efforts in this area include:

By Race

Differences in

Races

Causes of Occupational Segregation

• constitutional amendments
• legislation
• executive orders
• court decisions

Source: Educational and Wage Differential by Race, Tian Luo

Consequences of

Occupational Segregation

Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity Employment

• Earning differences between male and female
• Earning differences between races

• The number of women holding senior positions has gone up.
• The minority has been given equal representation than before.
• Schools no longer admit students based on gender or race.
• All people can now feel that they are more equal before the law.

Other Causes of

Occupational Segregation

• Supply and Demand Aspects
• Supply Side: Economic Self-interest
• Demand Side: Discrimination

2006

• Government polices have been put in place to address the issues of affirmative action
• The policies requires that minorities can be able to access all facilities just like the majority
• In some cases, there are policies which require that certain positions be occupied by women.
• Policies are formulated to ensure equal representation of people regardless of race or gender

Glass Ceiling for Women

Recent Year Charge Statistics from EEOC

The Explained Gap

Glass Ceiling:

Glass Ceiling for People of a Particular Racial/Ethnic Background

Wage differences that are due to actual differences in human capital or other qualifications.

Earnings

Differences

Source labor department data

Labor Statistics

Female Annual Earnings as a Percentage of Male Earnings

the name given to the set of subtle barriers to inhibit women and minorities from reaching the upper echelons of corporate America, government, and academia.

The Unexplained Gap

Earnings Differences

• Wage differences that cannot be explained by capabilities.
• Discrimination

© 2008 Thomson/South-Western. All rights reserved.

Possible Biases in Estimation of Discrimination

Recognizing Labor Market Discrimination

and their Effects

Possible Sources of the Unexplained Gender Wage Gap

Evidence that Discrimination in the Workplace Still Exists

• Difficulty of collecting data on all qualifications of individuals associated with productivity.
• Motivation
• Work effort
• Women may be discouraged by the feedback loop, which is also hard to measure.

• Aside from discrimination…
• Impact of childbearing
• Gender differences in non-cognitive skills
• Work habits
• Behavioral traits
• Preferences
• Men may place more of an importance on power and money than women do

Subtle Barriers

Representative Study Results

On Average...

Subtle Barriers

• Earnings Difference
• Possible Discrepancies of the Unexplained Wage Gap
• Possible Sources of the unexplained gender wage gap
• Other non-empirical evidence on both gender and race discrimination

Employer Discrimination

Women quit their jobs more often than men

Schools and the Workplace

EEOC 2011 discrimination charges total of 99,947 charges

Results

• Workplace/school culture
• Lack of female/minority leaders
• Affordability and accessibility of childcare
• Lack of mentors
• Societal expectations

Other non-empirical evidence on discrimination

• Study of full time workers
• Ages 18-65
• Designed to focus on male and female workers that were as similar as possible.
• Intent of the study was to decompose the factors contributing to the 20% pay difference between men and women.

Effects of Employer Discrimination

• Wage discounts
• Higher costs of production

• Studies that focus on homogenous groups
• Michigan Law School
• Experimental Approaches
• Philadelphia restaurants
• Employee discrimination cases
• Financial Services Industry (gender)
• Bank of America (race)

EEOC 2011 discrimination charges total of 99,947 charges

Perceptions of

Average Differences

Result In:

Tastes for Discrimination and

the Discrimination Coefficient

Possible Causes of Employee Discrimination

• Identity Model
• Pollution Theory of Discrimination
• Lack of proper training as a direct result of discrimination

• Pay gaps in the workplace
• Fewer opportunities for higher education
• Feedback effects

Employee Discrimination

Effects of Employee Discrimination

• Occupational segregation
• Reduced morale
• Reduced productivity

Effects of Customer Discrimination

Customer Discrimination

Statistical Discrimination:

• Customers can adversely impact the productivity of workers if they refuse their services.
• Reduced productivity makes these workers undesirable to employers, further decreasing their productivity.

Feedback Effects

Motivations for Employer Discrimination and Its Effects

Background photo by t.shigesa