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Discrimination

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Hire them...doesn't look like firm discriminates. Workers quit... If team discriminates against French speaking players. How will wages compare? ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Discrimination


1
Discrimination

2
Discrimination
  • Making a distinction in favor or against a person
    based on the group, class, or category that
    person belongs to rather than individual merit
  • Based on non-productive characteristics
  • When equals are treated unequally
  • Based on group rather than individual attributes

3
Discrimination sometimes confused with Prejudice
and Segregation

4
Prejudice
  • Attitude
  • When a person dislikes those in another group
  • I dont like Hispanics
  • Only leads to discrimination if you ACT on the
    prejudice

5
Discrimination
  • Verbal or nonverbal acts that bring about
    negative consequences for the minority group
  • Aimed at denying equal access to societal rewards

6
Segregation
  • Physical separation due to negative feeling
  • Complete elimination of the minority group or
    thing
  • Easier to measure than discrimination because it
    can be quantified
  • Can result from prejudice, discrimination, or
    voluntary choice

7
Discrimination vs. Social Injustice
  • When equals are treated unequally
  • When an individual is treated unjustly

8
Why does discrimination exist?
  • In 1946, Jackie Robinson was the first
    African-American player since the 1880s to play
    professional baseball
  • Baseball had much discrimination of blacks in its
    past
  • Any other examples in sports??
  • Two theories

9
Neoclassical Theory of Discrimination
  • Gary Becker in 1957
  • People are rational and seek to maximize utility
  • What is rationality?
  • What is socially viewed as normal
  • What is utility?
  • Satisfaction or well-being
  • People who discriminate experience disutility
    from associating with members of certain groups

10
  • Disutility leads to
  • Firms willing to accept lower profits
  • Consumers willing to pay higher prices
  • Employees willing to accept lower wages
  • All to avoid associating with members of that
    group

11
Monopoly Power
  • Firms discriminate because it leads to higher
    profits
  • Use race and gender to divide labor into
    non-competing groups
  • Three models
  • Dual labor market model
  • Crowding/occupational segregation model
  • Political economy model

12
Dual Labor Market Model
  • Market is segmented into a primary and secondary
    sector
  • No mobility between sectors
  • Primary Sector
  • Job security, increasing wages, good benefits,
    upward mobility, on the job training
  • Major League
  • Secondary Sector
  • High turnover rates, low wages, no benefits, no
    on the job training
  • Minor League

13
  • Based on internal labor market
  • Wage determination and job assignments are based
    on administrative procedures
  • Productivity doesnt determine wages
  • Initial job does
  • Employers put the people who they dont like in
    the secondary sector
  • Hire themdoesnt look like firm discriminates
  • Workers quit

14
Crowding/Occupational Segregation Model
  • Women and minorities are crowded into certain
    occupations
  • Lower wage occupations
  • With no discrimination what do we know about
    mobility of labor and wages?
  • Mobility of labor exists and wages are equal
  • With discrimination what do we know about
    mobility of labor and wages?
  • Mobility of labor doesnt exist and wages are
    unequal
  • Graphical (with and without discrimination)

15
Ls
Wage
Wage
Ls
Ls
Ls
W2
W1
W2
Ld
Ld
workers
workers
2
1
2
1
Firm does not Discriminate
Firm Discriminates
16
Why does this occur?
  • Some employers want certain types of employees
  • Some employees want to work with certain types of
    workers
  • Some customers want to deal with certain types of
    people
  • Segregation can increase productivity and
    therefore profits

17
Political Economy Model
  • Discrimination benefits employers while ALL
    employees lose
  • Play one race (gender) against the other
  • Segregation of workers is done to minimized
    probability of unionization
  • Firms are happy because unions tend to increase
    wages

18
Support
  • African Americans have typically been used as
    strikebreakers
  • Puts in workers minds that this group is
    willing to take your job
  • Areas of the country that boast less
    discrimination have more unionized jobs

19
Types of discrimination
  • Wage
  • Women earn on average 72 of a mans salary
  • African American men earn 80 of a white mans
    salary
  • How are wages determined?
  • Based on productivity
  • How measure productivity?
  • Only accurate measure is piece rates
  • 50 of wage difference has been linked to
    productivity differences
  • Rest (residual) can be linked to discrimination

20
Employment Discrimination
  • Not hired due to non-economic factors
  • Age, race, gender
  • Back to Neoclassical Theory
  • People will pay to get rid of disutility gained
    from working with certain types of people

21
How can we measure this disutility?
  • Discrimination coefficient
  • D
  • More intense prejudice means D is greater

22
Example
  • French speaking hockey players and English
    speaking hockey players are equally productive
  • MPL are equal
  • With no discrimination workers will be
    substitutes
  • How will their wages compare??
  • Wages will be equal
  • If team discriminates against French speaking
    players
  • How will wages compare??
  • French speaking wage (salary) will be lower

23
Why will French speaking hock wages be lower?
  • Psychic Cost
  • Disutility associated with hiring this group
  • Monetary Cost Psychic Cost
  • What is the monetary cost of an employee?
  • wage
  • How do we measure this psychic cost?
  • D (discrimination coefficient)

24
How are wages determined?
  • Wage set by workers productivity
  • With no discrimination
  • WageFS WageES MPL
  • Because players are equally productive
  • With discrimination French Speaking players are
    more costly
  • WES MPL
  • WFS D MPL

25
  • But MPL are equal so
  • WES WFS D
  • WES D WFS
  • French speaking wage is less than the English
    speaking wage
  • How much less?
  • By the psychic cost (D)

26
Occupational Discrimination
  • Male jobs vs. Female jobs
  • People not hired due to societys view of
    appropriate gender for the job
  • Male or Female Job?
  • Secretary
  • Plumber
  • Male carrier
  • Flight attendant

27
Statistical Discrimination
  • Employers project onto individuals certain
    perceived characteristics about the group they
    belong to
  • Why do firms do this??
  • Imperfect information
  • Use available information that they feel is
    correlated with productivity
  • What information is this?
  • Education, experience, test scores, age

28
  • Subjective information
  • Information about the PERCEIVED average
    characteristic of the group rather than
    individual characteristic
  • Hire workers who are statistically safer
  • Examples
  • Women tend to leave their job after three years
  • Hispanics tend not to speak English well
  • White men tend to be arrogant

29
Why use this information?
  • Cheep source of information
  • Seems to be efficient
  • Non-discriminatory employers use also

30
Employee Discrimination
  • Taste for discrimination against co-workers
  • Regard their wage as lower because they have to
    work with these types of people
  • How much lower?
  • w(1-D)
  • Want higher wages to continue working in those
    conditions

31
Customer Discrimination
  • People who prefer not to purchase goods or
    services from certain types of people
  • Do customers get wages???
  • Nothey pay prices
  • View prices they pay as higher
  • P(1D)
  • Hard to isolate due to quality issues

32
Customer Discrimination in Sports
  • Fans have preferences for observing players of a
    particular race, age, gender, or other
    non-productive characteristic
  • Doesnt mean fans hate the other players
  • Fans may pay a premium to see preferred players
  • Implies
  • MRP for players of the preferred group is greater
    than for other groups
  • What is MRP?
  • MR MPL

33
Evidence
  • Major League Baseball trading cards
  • Baseball cards of Latin and Black players are
    generally worth less than cards of equally
    productive white players
  • NBA racial composition
  • Teams racial composition has been found to be
    highly correlated with the racial composition of
    the city

34
Is all discrimination bad??
  • Should we try to eliminate all forms of
    discrimination??

35
Costs and Benefits of Discrimination
  • Costs
  • Social lower standard of living, less
    opportunities, paid lower wages, pay higher
    prices
  • Economic Less efficient (under PPF)
  • Benefits
  • Employers get more productive workers than they
    pay for
  • Wage paid is less than MPL

36
Should we??
  • Those who receive benefits from discrimination
    would argue NOthose who receive no benefits
    would argue YES
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