The
Problem.
Effects
Causes
Unconscious Bias
Recent research has shown that often employers are unaware of their bias hiring decisions. This is the insidious phenomenon of unconscious bias. Employers are inherently bias when it comes to employing men over women, or promoting men rather than women. The same is true for when employers have to choose between applicants of different race. A field experiment conducted in 2009 had two identical applicants apply to the same job with the single difference of race, evidence from that study shows that the white applicants’ chances of receiving a callback are around 20% higher than those of black applicants.
Statistical Discrimnation
Statistical discrimination theory proposes that a employers’ experiences may influence their perceptions of which employees will be successful and which groups will have the highest turnover rates. Since employers have been hiring "white males" for so long, they have unconsciously build up the idea that they are the most efficient employees, and that straying away from that would be harming the business directly. Thats why they will continue to hire "white males" and discriminate against female applicants and applicants of color unconsciously thinking that that is what is best for the business.
Underemployment
Employment discrimination denies people of minority groups employment opportunities, and as a result these people become underemployed which means they work a job that doesn’t make full use of their skills and abilities. For example, in the field of engineering the percentage of black people employed in the US engineering sector doesn’t represent the percentage of black graduates in the US. This is because people of white race occupy a disproportionate fraction of the engineering job market, although less than 50% of engineering graduates are white they dominate over 70% of engineering labor in the US. This means a majority of minority engineering graduates end up resorting to other fields for employment and ultimately become underemployed or even worse exit the labor force and give up on finding a suitable job.
Socioeconomic Divide
Employment discrimination contributes to the construction of a socioeconomic divide between white people and minority groups in the US. If white people are always employed at the job of their full potential and people of minority groups constantly struggle to find jobs and are underemployed, wealth will ultimately accumulate in people of white race and the opposite will occur for people of minority. This creates social gaps between different ethnic groups based on economic circumstances. This is defined to be a socioeconomic divide and can be extremly difficult to reverse as it is constructed over centuries. The presence of a socioeconomic divide is further justified by the ratio of white to nonwhite people working in high paying sectors like engineering as they are often dominated by people of white race, and fields that employ majority white continue to fuel this divide.