Research Paper on "Employment Discrimination in Regards to Promotion"

Research Paper 11 pages (3358 words) Sources: 6

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Employment Discrimination in Regards to Promotion

America is a country rich in diverse cultures from the Indians, Whites, Asian, Hispanic, Blacks and other minority group like the Arabs. With this diverse culture, there is the need to have cohesion among them for the country to move forward. Discrimination is a major setback to the growth of United States. This paper focuses on employment discrimination as a form of discrimination. Employee discrimination is a practice which eats up the economy of a country. A country cannot be sufficiently competitive with other nations with the increase in discrimination. For a country to maintain their competitiveness, it must utilize its entire workforce regardless of their color, race, religion, age, sex or disability. Employment discrimination has been on the rise in our work places, and this has led to lack of cultural diversity in the workplace plus other negative impacts on individuals, companies and communities.

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Prevalence

National data

According to a survey done in 2007, it was found that there were about 19,000 age related discrimination claims filed that year, this accounted for 23% of all complaints. Of all the claims on age related issues, 62% of them were found to have no enough evidence or proof of occurrence from the 61.8% in 2006. In comparison with other employee discrimination claims, 37% of all the claims made were race related and, on the other hand, 30% of the claims were sex related (U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 2007).

Later in 2008, another survey was done with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; where it was found that 24,582 of the claims made on discrimination were age related, this number was up from the one obtain in the previous year by 28.7%. Of the claims made, 11,124 which translates to 59% were found to have no established cause to believe that discrimination occurred based upon evidence obtained from the investigation while 638 (3.2%) of the claims had substantial evidence for resolution of the claim.

Women and the minority groups are more at risk of employment discrimination. From the various statistics reports show that even with the increased education level of women and the more employment opportunities given to them. Most of them are still earning less than 80% of the total earning men take home. Also on women, reports from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission show that pregnancy discrimination related claims has risen by 30% while discrimination on employment claims increased by 25%, these facts are rising because of the high level of knowledge women are gaining concerning their rights at workplaces (U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 2007).

Statistics also show that older workers are faced by two types of discrimination. First, 15% of them fail to get employment opportunities because of their age while 10% fail to qualify for promotions also because of their age. In addition, 16% of all workers in America say that they have at one time faced discrimination based on either race or ethnicity while 8% of them said they have once been discriminated based on age.

Data for select cities

According to the national employment summary data for New Mexico State obtained from Equal employment opportunity commission state and local government information. It shows that from the 43,936 employees present, of them, 25371 are men while 18565 are women. From the 25371 men employed, 10019 are white, 530 (Black), 13768 (Hispanic), 236 (Asian), 818 (Indian). While in the women category, from the 18565 women/female employed, 6633 are white, 353 (Black), 10576 (Hispanic), 156 (Asian), 847 (Indian).

In comparison with Maryland State, the number of females and males employed are as follows; men are 64205 while female are 55745. In the male category, the distribution of the employees according to race is as follows; 41182 (White), 20142 (Blacks), 1377 (Hispanic), 1288 (Asian), 216 (Indian). On the other hand, the distribution, of women employed is as follows; 28,295 (White), 25,253 (Black), 1,038 (Hispanic), 1,010 (Asian), 149 (Indian).

Washington State also had the following statistics. The numbers of men on a full time employment were 78,988 while the numbers of women also on a full time employment were 65,971. From the total tally of both men and female employees, the following were their distribution according to race; White (82.9%), Black (5.6%), Hispanic (3.2%), Asian (6.8%), and Indian (1.5%).

Population Demographics

The national statistics in relation to the different races found in America as per 2010 demographic patterns is as follows; the White are the majority with 72.4%, the African-American are the second with 12.6%; the Non-Hispanic Asian are the third having 4.8% of the total population. Other races include; the American Indian (0.9%), the Native Hawaiiian (0.2%) and other smaller races having a total of 9.1% of the entire population size.

From the 2011 statistics, out of the total population of Americans (314,558,780), 155,414,638 are male while 159,414,683 are female. This implies that there are slightly more female than males.

Types of Employment Discrimination

There are various types of discriminatory practices taking place in the work places, these include; Age, sex, race, equal compensation, disability, religion, retaliation and pregnancy (Bell, 2007). All these types of discrimination take place at different stages or sections in a workplace, and they may affect the working relationship amongst the employees which translates to poor productivity of the company/organization.

Causes of employment discrimination

Industrialization

Employment discrimination dates back from the time few countries were starting to become industrialized. This led to people migrating into United States from all corners of the world in search for jobs and better lives. Due to the increased migration of people, the companies available could not offer employment for everyone, this lead to competition for job opportunities resulting to issues such as discrimination. At a workplace employment discrimination is more crucial especially when one is seeking recruitment, appraisal and evaluation (Roscigno, 2007).

Lack of competition among companies

In contrast with the public sectors, the private sector is perceived to have less discrimination, as a result of the existing competition among them. Due to their urge for profits, they are forced to operate under a minimum expense by producing less expensive products with the least expensive workers. The economic theory confirms that, firms which discriminate based on age, gender, race or color, are likely to lose their efficient workers to other firms that do not engage in discriminatory practices (Byron, 2010).

Rational and organizational demography

Another source of discrimination is the one based on rational and organizational demography. This is where a person is discriminated based on his or her demographic similarities to and difference from others in the work group or organization. Demographic characteristics such as sex, age and race are often considered being both source of information and source of identity for individuals. Relational demographics, on the other hand, can be considered to be the distribution of the basic attributes such as age, sex, ethnicity, and educational levels among others (Roscigno, 2007). All these traits have some potential of discrimination. Studies show that, discrimination based on age comes about as a result of the effect of old age on turn-over of the firm. As a person gets older, so is his/her aggressiveness in working hence experiencing a lower turnover. At the same time, sex composition is also a reason why many employers discriminate employees in relation to promotion because, for instance, it was discovered that turnover of a firm may decline or be lower if there would be more women for a specific type of work, therefore, to avoid this, the management usually decides to pick or promote individuals with different sex from that of the majority.

Discrimination based on Age

Employees are also discriminated based on age. Most employers are known to issue promotion based on the age of a person and not truly the experience he/she has. Discrimination based on age has an impact on the younger employees because they are eventually not guaranteed of promotion even after attaining a field of knowledge in his/her area of specialization. From the statistical discrimination theory, it is suggested that employers sometimes discriminate when hiring and promoting a certain group of individuals because of the inferences and perceptions of evidence that they are less productive than other groups (Alon, 2007). Statistical discriminators do not rely on an individual evaluation of productivity, but, they tend to rely on the belief about a certain group averages to classify people according to their efficiencies. Most managers heading both sectors are found engaging in statistical discrimination when they are seeking to recruit candidates for highly productive fields (Couch, 2010).

Stereotyping

Stereotyping is another cause of discriminatory behavior among employers. For instance women, ethnic minorities and older employees are less likely to be considered for more professional and managerial jobs because they are seen to be less productive. Also, in other specific jobs, men are considered more competent and less warm than women hence they may either be considered or not considered for a given job description. Therefore, both men and women are grouped or… READ MORE

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