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.