Reading on Wednesday, June 15th

There are many instances of labor discrimination in the United States. Job applicants who are members of minority groups are discouraged from attempting to get certain jobs. Even though they are as talented as other people, they do not get enough chances to show off their talents in the workplace. Since only a limited number of jobs are available and there are many available workers in the labor market, employers use biased and discriminatory judgments to choose a preferred type of worker. Race, gender, and marital status are among the influential factors used in those biased judgments concerning available applicants for certain jobs.

In the job market, African Americans are often disadvantaged and treated in a discriminatory manner by some companies. Marianne Bertrand and Sendhil Mullainathan did a study and explained in “Are Emily and Greg More Employable Than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination,” that someone who has a name that is noticeably African American can find it difficult to get a job. They illustrated that if two individuals with similar qualifications engage in a job search, the one with an African-American name receives fewer interviews. Their results “imply that employers use race as a factor when reviewing resumes, which matches the legal definition of discrimination” (1006). Those constantly existing discrimination towards African American could possibly also exist for other ethic groups including Asians and Hispanics.

In addition to racial discrimination in the labor market, there is evidence that women who have children are also treated unfairly. Shelley Correl, Stephen Benard, and In Paik found in a laboratory experiment and audit study that many married women with children in the United States are targets of discrimination. They said in a journal entitled “Getting a Job: Is There a Motherhood Penalty?” that many people believe that “mothers are less competent and committed to paid work than nonmothers” (1332) and that women who are mothers are paid lower wages than others. It is interesting that, according to the researchers, “fathers were advantaged over childless men in several ways, being seen as more committed to paid work and being offered higher starting salaries” (1332). Unlike the mother, no certain discrimination applies to the fathers.

Various audit studies performed in the United States showed that employers’ bias and stereotypes about people of certain races and social status leads to unequal job and career opportunities. Discrimination is practiced every day in the workplace. There would be even more employees who are from minority and poor social backgrounds, suffer from those job inequalities, but just admit those unfairness as part of hindrance of themselves in order to keep up with their livings at subsistence levels.