Equal opportunity vs. Meritocracy(3/26)

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Equal opportunity vs. Meritocracy(3/26)

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Title: Equal opportunity vs. Meritocracy(3/26)


1
Equal opportunity vs. Meritocracy(3/26)
  • Cole Limited Differences
  • Reskin Affirmative Action
  • Buffers and Shunts

2
Is the U.S. institutionally sexist today? (review)
  • There is a lot of gender inequality,
  • and there are a lot of people who are,
    individually sexist?
  • But is the over-all playing field level?
  • Or even more than level?
  • Or are the differences natural
  • Should it be level?
  • If the inequalities are the result of a fair
    competition, then most Americans believe they
    should not be countered or compensated.
  • Experts disagree about whether the competition is
    fair

3
Cole A Theory of Limited Differences
  • The hard sciences are very unequal.
  • I.e. there is a high degree of concentration of
    resources, rewards and productivity.
  • They are very male-dominated.
  • More than 90 (often more than 99) of the elite
    positions are held by men.
  • And they are very meritocratic
  • They make a much bigger effort than the corporate
    or legal elite to reward accomplishment fairly.

4
The Mathew Principle
  • We have described any structure that tends to
    operate by the rule, To him who hath, shall be
    given more, even to abundance, and from him who
    hath little, shall be taken away even what he
    hath
  • As governed by the Matthew Principle whose
    logic is


Access to further resources
Resources

5
The Matthew Principle in Science
  • The concept of the Matthew Principle was
    invented by R. K. Merton to describe the process
    of reward in the sciences.
  • Specifically, it describes what happens when
  • there are a small number of resources (research
    grants, elite positions, space in intro texts),
  • and one allocates them strictly on the basis of
    previous accomplishment?
  • Those who have had access to resources in the
    past will have accomplishments, and so
  • The rich will get richer and the poor will get
    poorer.

6
The blind spot of the Meritocratic Principles
  • Suppose Jane and John have equivalent
    accomplishments
  • Reward on the basis of merit prohibits
  • Jane overcame greater obstacles therefore she
    showed greater ability and should be preferred.
  • We know there are biases in one direction in one
    stage therefore we will institutionalize biases
    in the other direction in other stages.
  • The society needs both male and female
    scientists, and so we will insure there are both.
  • Justifications of affirmative action depend on
    such principles.

7
The question addressed by the model of limited
differences.
  • Coles model investigates the net result of a
    system that combines meritocratic processes with
    biased ones,
  • Or alternately, the effects of a meritocratic
    processes in a society that contains some gender
    (or race) bias and disadvantage.
  • Do the meritocratic elements counteract the bias?
  • Do they pass it on?
  • Do they amplify it?

8
The assumptions of the model of limited
differences
  • Equal numbers of equally talented, equally
    motivated male and female college graduates
  • 25 hurdles to get to an elite position, such as
    finding a thesis mentor who is a star or
    publishing 6 refereed papers in the 1st 6 years
    as a junior faculty person, to get tenure.
  • 20 hurdles are entirely unbiased.
  • 5 hurdles have a moderate male bias (I.e. 66
    women pass through the hurdle for every 100 men.)

9
Are there equal numbers of talented men and
women?If not, why not?
  • The text notes that it is difficult to
    distinguish effects of nature and nurture.
  • It flirts with theories of the female brain
  • The SAT gender gap (p.427) is about 50 points
    more in math.
  • Most peoples intuition is that if that results
    from genes, then schools should accommodate to
    it.
  • But if it results from bias, schools should
    probably discount or compensate for the gap.
  • The more important biases are not question form,
    but the source of the different performance.
  • It is the whole system that generates bias.

10
Is a system of limited differences (mostly
meritocratic) biased?
  • A common intuition since most of the stages are
    entirely unbiased, and since those that are, are
    only moderately so, therefore
  • the system will be mostly unbiased, with the
    unbiased components counteracting or outweighing
    the biased ones.
  • This intuition is incorrect. Cole shows that
    the meritocratic components of the system
    amplify and pass on the biased elements.

11
A simple filter representation
  • 100 men
  • 100 men
  • 100 men
  • 100 men
  • 100 men
  • 100 men
  • 100 women
  • 66 women
  • 44 women
  • 29 women
  • 19 women
  • 13 women

In Coles actual model, the interactions between
the particular biases and the unbiased hurdles
eliminates nearly 99 of women, but even without
such interactions, it is evident that 5 hurdles
with a 2/3 bias will eliminate nearly 90 of
women.
12
Filter bias survival
  • 3600 men
  • 1600 men
  • 800 men
  • 400 men
  • 200 men
  • 100 men
  • 1800 women
  • 533 women
  • 144 women
  • 48 women
  • 16 women
  • 5 woman

13
Individual bias and structural sexism
  • As with tipping point residential segregation,
    the outcome is not unrelated to there being some
    biased people in the system.
  • But many of the hurdles of women may have to do
    with other things about the society.
  • Even senior faculty who do not mentor women may
    be practicing statistical discrimination or
    profiling.
  • And the problem is not with their motivation but
    the fact that virtually all women are eliminated.

14
Policy Implications and Choices
  • The cumulative effect of half a dozen small
    biases, if they all move in the same direction,
    and if there are no compensating forces, may be
    very large. This means we must either
  • Accept a system that is largely biased.
  • Try to eliminate all residual biases in the
    system (usually impossible).
  • Buffer an organization against inequality
    outside.
  • Institute shunts or compensatory programs to
    bypass biased hurdles.

15
Buffers
  • The army, Sun Oil, or Villanova cannot usually
    change the educational structure of the ghetto or
    the family structure,
  • and they may not want to.
  • But that does not mean that they have to ignore
    disadvantages from those areas and pass it on.
  • Sliding scales and compensatory programs may
    prevent those external inequalities from
    operating inside.
  • In fact, someone swimming the same speed upstream
    is swimming faster.

16
Shunts
  • Often it is much easier to bypass a blockage than
    to change it.
  • For example, It would be very difficult to force
    senior physicists to advise on female graduate
    students,
  • or to make it equally possible for female junior
    faculty with children to write 6 refereed
    articles.
  • It is not very difficult to provide an alternate
    path.

17
Reskin The Realities of Affirmative Action in
Employment (ASA 1998)
  • An ASA booklet
  • Reskin (president-elect of the ASA) argues that
    opponents of affirmative action have distorted it
    and made it a political football,
  • that there are many kinds of AA programs,
  • but that the kinds of procedures opposed as
    preferences, quotas or reverse
    discrimination are myths, neither required nor
    permitted by affirmative action programs.

18
Reskin the reality
  • Reskin argues that Affirmative Action programs
    are genuine efforts to broaden applicant pools to
    include more qualified minorities and women.
  • Studies such as Cole and Kanter show that there
    is a pervasively non-level playing field that
    needs to be leveled,
  • and this is corroborated by matched pair studies.
  • When people are asked whether they support
    policies to level the field, about 70 support
    them
  • Even when they oppose affirmative action.
  • The conflict is not between merit and affirmative
    action, but between cronyism and a genuinely
    level playing field.

19
Is there Unequal Opportunity
  • There is large amount of segregation and unequal
    pay by gender.
  • The main way of determining whether this is the
    result of discriminatory treatment, is audits,
    involving matched candidates.
  • There have been 1500 audits (usually of hires)
    demonstrating unequal treatment.
  • There are about 100,000 complaints of unequal
    treatment per year to the EEOC, which has a
    backlog of more than 100,000 cases,
  • Is understaffed, underfunded and without teeth.

20
How does Affirmative Action differ from
Anti-discrimination law?
  • Anti-discrimination law
  • After the fact
  • Responsibility of the victim to show wrong
  • Usually based on intent (which usually cannot be
    shown)
  • Affirmative action
  • Aims to alter institu-tional disadvantage.
  • Responsibility of employer
  • Equally applicable if the segregation results
    from day-to-day practices such as old-boy network
    recruitment.

21
What are the main kinds of Affirmative Action?
  • There are 4 main kinds of affirmative action
    plan
  • Executive orders mandate companies doing 50,000
    of business with the govt to have a plan
  • Federal and some state and local governments have
    some kind of affirmative action plan.
  • Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act allows the
    courts to mandate action (usually for
    non-compliance).
  • Some firms have voluntary A.A. plans
  • In the 1980s similar laws and orders were passed
    for veterans and for the handicapped, but they
    have not, as yet, come under the criticism as
    those Re race and sex.

22
1. Govt mandated programs for businesses with
govt contracts
  • About 3 of firms are involved,
  • but they are large and employ 25 of workers.
  • The programs are of different kinds
  • they largely involve open recruitment and
    explicit, public policies of advancement.
  • The law and the guidelines expressly forbid
    quotas.

23
2. Government programs
  • Cover an additional 20 of the work force.
  • The programs are of different kinds
  • they largely involve open recruitment and public
    policies of advancement.
  • The law expressly forbid quotas.

24
3. Court-mandated AA Programs.
  • This is the only case where numerical goals,
    timetables, and even quotas may be used.
  • But only subject to other rulings that prohibit
    unduly disadvantaging dominant group members.
  • And only when no other remedy existed, as in the
    case of a sheet metal union that repeatedly
    defied court orders.
  • Rare

25
4. Private, voluntary programs
  • The programs are of different kinds
  • they largely involve open recruitment and making
    policies and criteria for advancement public.
  • They are debarred from using quotas,
  • but they may use gender or race as a plus to
    redress substantial disparities resulting from
    past discrimination,
  • If and only if it does not unduly disadvantage
    dominant group members.

26
What kinds of firms have more equal opportunities?
  • Reskins own work shows which firms are more
    likely to have equal opportunities.
  • It is largely firms that have formal, explicit,
    public policies of hiring, recruiting, evaluation
    and advancement.
  • This is the reason that public firms are more
    likely to have equal opportunity than private
    ones.
  • Most employers hate such policies as unnecessary
    paper work, but the main fact is that they
    constrain employers and supervisors arbitrary
    favoritism and cronyism.

27
Do Affirmative Action policies work?
  • Reskin argues that no single set of programs can
    undo institutionalized inequality.
  • But the evidence is that affirmative action
    programs have made a large contribution to
    equalizing opportunities of men and women.
  • They do not unfairly disadvantage white males
  • They do not replace merit by quotas, but
    cronyism by formal, open policies.
  • You do not necessarily have to change peoples
    networks to prevent them from being the main
    access to jobs and promotion.
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