Racial Discrimination in Modern World - Essay Example

Labor Market Discrimination Discrimination is prevalent worldwide – cultures, races, skin colors, genders, age, educational attainment, accents, etc. Although not as expressed as before (e.g. the racial discrimination issue in the southern states of America in the 1940s). Then, Prof. Adam Fairclough noted that “racial discrimination affected a whole nation (http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/society_culture/protest_reform civil_rights_america_01.shtml). This is just but one popular example of discrimination in the labor market. At the time, no colored person in the said states had any right to choose which type of jobs and were only treated, and not employed, as slaves (earnings would be in the form of meager food and shelter). Fairclough further noted that “blacks in the North lived in ghettos, because they were unable to buy or rent houses elsewhere. Within the armed forces, for example, blacks served in segregated units or, in the case of the Navy, were virtually excluded. Many trade unions routinely excluded blacks from membership.” Discrimination is defined by Dictionary.LaborLawTalk.Com as the “unfair treatment of a person or group on the basis of prejudice (http://dictionary.laborlawtalk.com/discrimination).” While labor market is the avenue in which workers vie for positions or jobs and employers choose the most suitable workers for their companies or for the jobs at hand. Clearly, if economic theory were to be applied based mainly upon the definition of labor market, the simple Law of Supply and Demand applies with a little alteration – this time job or the work with which workers compete for, or vise versa (the work competes for the right workers) – becomes the product. Abola, A.V. and Villegas, B.M. points out that “[…] the Law of Demand which states that as [the price of] commodity decreases, ceteris paribus (i.e., everything else unchanged), the quantity of the product [that the buyers would be able and willing to buy] increases (2001, p.30).” And correspondingly, “the Law of Supply [states that] as the price of commodity is raised, the quantity of the product […] also increases (Abola, A.V. & Villegas, B.M., 2001, p.32).” This is ideally the scenario in labor market under normal conditions. Discrimination factors, however, would defy this theory. In the presence of these factors, the Law of Supply will not affect the treatment of the product – e.g. making the price as the salary and the product the worker, there would not be any effect whether the salary is increased since the quality of the worker (product) is now affected by discrimination. Across countries, discrimination in relation to labor market varies considerably with culture. The Economy Professor (EP) website points the insight of Gary Becker(The Economics of Discrimination) that labor market discrimination may “take the form of different wage rates for equally productive workers with different personal characteristics (such as race, sex, age, religion, nationality, or education (http://www.economyprofessor.com/ economictheories/labor-market-discrimination.php).” In addition, other practices such as exclusion from jobs on the basis of social class, union membership, physical conditions or political beliefs (EP, http://www.economyprofessor.com/ economictheories/labor-market-discrimination.php). This is known to many as labor discrimination according to “taste (Moro, A., http://www.econ.umn.edu/ ~amoro/Teaching/gradlaborsyl.html).” Focusing on this labor discrimination economic theory, it can be traced that these common factor stem from age-old cultural biases. Citing gender issues – in ancient times, societies have been patriarchal in nature, and some cultures these days (middle-eastern, remote Asian, African and other underdeveloped tribal communities) have adhered to this mindset. Regarded as second-class or even third-class citizens in these cultures, women have been discriminated against in competing for jobs. Reasons for this may be due to the ancient theory that women are regarded as a physically-weaker gender. In countries in Latin America, women workers are considered “informal workers (Pardo, et.l al, p.101),” Gender biases may come in form of discrepancies in wage amounts. In Bogotà (1984) for example 92 percent of informal sector workers earned below legal minimum wage of US$ 54 per month in contrast, among formal sector workers, only 5.5 percent (Pardo et al.). Following the classification of workers presented in Chapter 3, one can distinguish at least four major sources of informal wage employment. Cases of women who are employed in the formal sector but are nevertheless paid below the legal minimum wages rates and are not provided benefits are also rampant mainly due to the fact that formal private sector firms fail to respect labor laws and regulations. To illustrate this, the table below shows the disparity among wage income of women as compared to men in Latin America: Gender-based Wage Discrepancy Due to Discrimination in labor market in latin America Area Year Specific groups / characteristics of workers % of Female wage compared to male wage Differential Argentina(Buenos Aires) 1985 all 651 22-32 16 with less than primary 802 Bolivia 1989 all(excluding domestic) 633 15-24 35 Brazil 1980 married employee 754 Negative 72 single employee 894 Negative self-employed married 654 Negative 74-5 self-employed single 17-33 77 Brazil 1989c employees (FS) 705 11-19 111 employees (IS) 856 25-28 self employed 706 16-17 Chile 1987 all 677 Negative 137 Colombia urban 1975 formal sector Informal sector 578 548 Colombia (Bogota) 1979 all 759 77 159 excluding domestic 9010 19 Colombia 1988 all (non-formal sector excluded) 9111 8-15 204 Costa Rica 1989 all 8112 6-7 218 Costa Rica 1989 all 9713 Negative 242 excluding domestic 10614 Ecuador urban 1987 all 7315 38d 268 Guatemala 1989 all 9716 45-55 292 formal sector 12517 20-28 self-employed 7317 Honduras 1989 formal sector 10618 Negative 316 self employed 6219 Negative Jamaica 1989 all 6120 Negative 335 Mexico 1984 all 8621 20-28 346 Panama 1989 alla 8522 14-15 369 Peru 1986 excluding self employed 8323 Negative 392 Peru(Lima) 1990 all 8224 10-15 418 wage and salary 7124 Negative self employed 9224 11-13 Uruguay Urban 1989 allb 7525 23-40 446 formal 8425 informal 6825 Venezuela 1987 all 7026 30-35 460 Venezuela 1989 all 8827 5-14 471 a Differential falls with education for self employed b Differential falls with education from 72% for less than primary to 64% for university c Informal sector includes all unregistered employees d Of the remaining 62 percent, 36% is due to differences in returns in human capital and 26 percent due to other unknown discrimination factors (Psacharopoulos and Tzannatos, 1 p.2; 2 p.4; 3 p.21; 4 p.44; 5 p.93; 6 p.110; 7 p.126 & Uribe-Echevarria and Forero, p.14; 9 p.153; 10 p.164; 11 p.199; 12 p.213; 13 p.223; 14 p.231; 15 p.258; 16 p.276; 17 p.279;18 p.301; 19 p.300; 20 p.326; 21 p.340; 22 p.349; 23 p.377; 24 p.400;25 p.431; 26 p.451; 27 p.465) As regards to nationality issues, it is still prevalent in economically-stable countries such as the United States, United Kingdom or the Middle East, to practice awarding lower compensation, benefits or positions to workers from the third world countries. Fajardo, F.R. contributes this to the fact that developing countries such as the third world countries have two basic problems with the quality of workers: the shortage of technical and skilled manpower resulting to surplus labor in all sectors of the economy (e.g., veterinarians and farm technicians are not enough to serve the needs of the rural areas, or computers and factory management experts are inadequate in supply in relation to the needs, yet millions are unemployed) and the surplus laborers in relation to the nature of the job – e.g. in one area, only one doctor is hired due to budget deficit, or in a school, only one librarian is hired (1994, p.180). The latter explains the movement of labor resources in these countries to an economically-higher country. The lack of job opportunities in the third world countries have forced these low-skilled, low-technical labor resources to seek for jobs in bigger cities, agreeing to the conditions of the employers in these cities. This has been seen as a production and business advantage by entrepreneurs, companies and other employers in top-ranking countries such as the Middle East, other economically-rising Asian Countries and even in the United States. Embracing the opportunity for bigger profits and lower labor costs, employers from these countries take advantage of these labor resources, and the workers are only eager to comply due to the demands of survival – food, water, clothing, shelter – all of which have been subjected to the downside of economic crisis (tax increases, petrol and gas rate increases, currency value depreciation, etc.) In the Philippines, for example, “The National Capital Region, according to the 1997 FIES, has 6.4 percent of its residents at or below the poverty threshold, and contributes 19.1 percent of the country's total overseas Filipino workers or OFWs. The provinces of Luzon, whose six regions-excluding the NCR--have a 30.1 percent poverty incidence rate, contribute 53.2 percent of the country's total overseas workers (Opiniano, J., http://www.philippinestoday.net/ ofwcorner/ofw11_1.htm).” In a study, majority of these OFWs work as house maids, domestic helpers, nannies or caretakers – jobs that do not match their educational background as professionals. Yet, these OFWs endeavor to seek jobs abroad despite discrimination in taste. In the United States, migrant workers from Mexico, and other parts of South America and Asia (Hispanic, Chinese, Taiwanese, etc.) are oftentimes observed to constitute majority of the lower-class laborers. Here, issues on skill level, educational standards, language proficiency are the main causes of this type of discrimination. In the lesser minority, cases such racial discrimination (as mentioned above) have been observed across various employment institutions and agencies. Even social treatment of these workers have been observed to have caused issues among the cultural minority. Efforts have been made across the United States and other economically stable countries to dispel the discrimination practices in markets, as backed by reasons mentioned above. More and more agencies and employers have openly announced slogans such as “equal-opportunity employer.” However, the neo-discrimination factors in labor these days have evolved, focusing no longer on the generalized and more recognized aspects such as race, nationality, color, age or gender, but rather shifted into a more neutral and acceptable modes of segregation: quality of education (preferences of education institution by employers), accent or language proficiency (or deficiency), the number of skills and the standard of skills, the quality of work experience (type of companies and positions held in which type of country), etc. This shift only modified the discriminatory tactics in the labor market – should the discrepancies exhibited by those discriminated workers be investigated, these would still conclude to the main factor: they belong to a type of society, country or culture that does not enable them to achieve all the above-mentioned requirements, thus again, going back to the issue on discrimination of taste. To address this cycle, the following policy measures are recommended: 1. strengthening of campaign against discrimination across all nations – labor practices have to be closely monitored and consistently evaluated; 2. in an agreement between nations, key required areas in labor competition must be defined and must be standardized for all countries; 3. effect a provision in the International Labor Codes that protects the rights and interests of marginalized labor resources. The success of the above measures is highly dependent on three common factors: the cooperation of all countries, specifically the affected countries such as the Middle East and Asia; the adherence of each nation, especially those in the marginalized sector to the measures; and, the support of labor leaders and heads of these nations. B I B L I O G R A P H Y Abola, V.A. & Villegas, B.M., 2001. Economics. An Introduction. Fifth Edition. Philippines: University of Asia and Pacific Foundation, Inc. Becker, G. 1957. The Economics of Discrimination. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Dictionary.LaborLawTalk.Com. Available: http://dictionary.laborlawtalk.com/ labor_market, (2 December 2005) Economy Professor. Available at: http://www.economyprofessor.com/ economictheories/labor-market-discrimination.php, (1 December 2005) Fairclough, A., 2005. Better Day Coming: Civil Rights in America in the 20th Century. Available: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/society_culture/ protest_reform/ civil_rights_america_01.shtm, (2 December 2005). Fajardo, F. 1994. Economic Development. Philippines: National Bookstore. Moro, A. 2005. Econ 8503 Graduate Labor Economics. Available at: http://www.econ.umn.edu/~amoro/Teaching/gradlaborsyl.html, (2 Dec. 2005). Pardo, L., Castaño, G.M., and Soto, A.T.,1989. “The articulation of formal and informal sectors in the economy of Bogotà, Colombia”, in Portes, A., Castells, M., and Benton, L.A. (eds.) The informal economy: Studies in advanced and less developed countries, Baltimore, 1989, Chapter 5 Psacharopoulos, G., and Tzannatos, Z. (1992) Women’s employment and pay in Latin America: Overview and methodology, World Bank Regional and Sectoral Studies, Washington D.C Uribe-Echevarria, F. and Forero, E. (1985) The role of informal activities in the process of urbanization: Small scale industries in peripheral regions in Colombia, Institute of Social Studies, The Hague Read More