Substantive Blog Post #3
Gender and racial discrimination is a common concern that is often swept under the rug. Until you actually look at the numbers, you don’t know how sickening the problem really is. There are large gaps in wage and salary workers in the workplace.The gender gap in median weekly earnings among full-time wage and salary workers is about 25 percent (i.e., women earn 75 percent as much as men). The gap between whites and African Americans is 22 percent and between whites and those the Census Bureau classifies as “Hispanic origin” is 32 percent (Bielby, 2000).The national unemployment rate is at its lowest point in a generation, yet the rate for African Americans remains twice that of whites.
Minimizing gender and racial bias in the workplace has been a target for years, but little has been accomplished. Organizations have differed in their willingness to address barriers to career advancement faced by women and racial and ethnic minorities, so any program to minimize workplace bias also must address the many ways organizations respond to pressures to address equal employment opportunity.
In this study, Thomas Nelson conducted an experiment to see if people could rely on individual information instead of stereotypes. Subjects were given information on both the gender (a group attribute) and personal interests (an individual attribute) for persons in a target population and asked to predict whether the college major of each target individual was engineering or nursing. Subjects were told that men and women in the target population were distributed equally across majors, so any stereotypes about men and women’s vocational interests were not applicable to the predictions they were being asked to make. The research found that while being informed about the invalidity of stereotypes reduced the propensity to stereotype by half, it did not eliminate it, nor did it increase subjects’ reliance on individuating information. Moreover, the illusion of receiving individuating information made subjects more confident and extreme in their stereotypical judgments.
Overall, this article has shown that stereotypes in the workplace have a major affect on employment opportunities. Decision makers are targeting individuals who are predominately white or male. Ascriptive traits are strongly influencing personnel decisions, because the more desirable jobs are absent among women or employees of color but common among men or whites.
Bielby, W. T. (2000). Minimizing workplace gender and racial bias. Contemporary Sociology,29(1), 120-129.
-Kristen Flowers