Content uploaded by Edmund S. Phelps
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Edmund S. Phelps on Dec 19, 2014
Content may be subject to copyright.
The Statistical Theory of Racism and Sexism
... Elle stipule que les différences de gains en fonction du sexe est le résultat d'une discrimination qu'exercent les entreprises sur le marché du travail offriraient aux femmes les gains les plus faibles. La discrimination cependant n'est pas uniforme elle peut aussi être de type statistique (Phelps 1972) et ne traduit alors qu'un comportement rationnel des employeurs face à l'incertitude, comme il peut s'agir aussi d'une discrimination sur la base des préférences (Becker 1971), laquelle affecterait soit directement les gains, soit se manifesterait par une ségrégation consistant à réserver les emplois les moins rémunérés aux femmes. Bergman (1974) développe une autre théorie de la discrimination salariale selon laquelle, l'exclusion des femmes de la partie du marché du travail « réservée » aux hommes donne lieu à un surplus d'offre de travail dans les segments du marché du travail où l'on trouve principalement des femmes, d'où une pression à la baisse sur les salaires dans ces segments. ...
... Afin de prendre en compte diverses explications de l'écart salarial entre les hommes et les femmes, y compris la discrimination (Blau 1984 ;Phelps 1972) du côté de la demande des employeurs ainsi que l'auto-sélection du côté de l'offre, nous utilisons un modèle de décomposition entre hommes et femmes sur le sous-échantillon de 1 941 travailleurs. ...
... To identify discriminatory behavior based on the renter's perceived gender identity or sexual orientation, we randomly vary the type of couple between heterosexual, gay male, and heterosexual couple where the female partner is a trans woman. In addition, we explore whether discriminatory behavior is consistent with models of statistical discrimination (Arrow, 1973;Phelps 1972) or taste-based discrimination (Becker, 1957). To this end, we randomly vary the amount of information observed to property managers on the renter's socioeconomic status (SES), from providing no information to signaling a high SES. ...
... For example, differences in response rates or the response type across groups might be evidence of prejudice against LGBTQ+ people, corresponding to tastebased discrimination (Becker, 1957). But differences in responses may also arise from statistical discrimination (Arrow, 1973;Phelps, 1972). For instance, high-SES candidates might receive favorable treatment if property managers consider them more likely to timely afford rental costs than candidates with lower SES. ...
We assess the extent of discrimination against gay and transgender individuals in the rental housing markets of four Latin American countries. We conducted a large-scale field experiment building on the correspondence study methodology to examine interactions between property managers and fictitious couples engaged in searches in a major online rental housing platform. We find evidence of discriminatory behavior against heterosexual couples where the female partner is a transgender women (trans couples): they receive 19% fewer responses, 27% fewer positive responses, and 23% fewer invitations to showings than heterosexual couples. However, we find no evidence of discrimination against gay male couples. We also assess whether the evidence is consistent with taste-based discrimination or statistical discrimination models by comparing response rates when couples signal a high socioeconomic status (high SES). While we find no significant effect of the signal on call-back rates or the type of response for high-SES heterosexual or gay male couples, trans couples benefit when they signal a high SES. Their call-back, positive-response, and invitation rates increase by 25%, 36% and 29%, respectively. These results suggest the presence of discrimination against trans couples in the Latin American online rental housing market, which seems consistent with statistical discrimination. Moreover, we find no evidence of heterosexual couples being favoured over gay male couples, nor evidence of statistical discrimination for gay male or heterosexual couples. JEL Classification: C93, J15, R23, R3
... Quale che sia la ragione, il risultato che si può osservare quasi dovunque è che le donne sono mediamente pagate meno degli uomini per svolgere lo stesso lavoro (Phelps 1972). Ciò, paradossalmente, è tanto più vero quanto più il lavoro ha un alto contenuto di capitale umano. ...
Disuguaglianze di genere in una pandemia: un approccio economico Riassunto L'evidenza empirica più recente indica che le diseguaglianze di genere durante la pandemia da Covid-19 si sono accentuate. Questo lavoro dopo aver esposto la concettualizzazione e la misurazione delle diseguaglianze di genere, esamina i principali meccanismi economici e comportamentali che, portando a una maggiore diseguaglianza, in seguito alla pandemia rischiano di azzerare i diritti faticosamente conquistati dalle donne. Abstract The latest empirical evidence shows that gender inequalities have been increasing during the Covid-19 pandemic. Starting from how inequalities are defined and measured, this paper addresses the issue of economic and social mechanisms which-by increasing gender inequalities, after the pandemic-are likely to jeopardize many of the rights conquered by women. 1. Introduzione Le diseguaglianze di genere sono state accentuate durante la pandemia da una serie di meccanismi familiari, sociali ed economici i cui effetti sono stati più difficili da contrastare sia per la tendenza a replicare tradizionali comportamenti, sia per la percezione, anche soggettiva, delle conseguenze che questa nuova situazione avrebbe potuto avere sulla salute e dunque sui diversi ambiti in cui si svolge la quotidianità. La raccolta dei dati, a 18 mesi dall'esordio del coronavirus, pur avendo coperto questo fenomeno in modo abbastanza estensivo, soffre ancora di numerosi problemi di affidabilità e rappresentatività dei campioni osservati. Si può tuttavia iniziare ad esaminare in che modo le diseguaglianze di genere siano state coinvolte, colpite, alimentate, in modo diverso tra loro e quanto il punto di vista dell'economista risulti rilevante. 2. La misurazione delle disuguaglianze di genere Le diseguaglianze di genere hanno molte facce, alcune delle quali sono per di più controverse. L'ovvia diversità che si riscontra tra le componenti, femminile e maschile, di una popolazione si replica a volte anche all'interno di entrambe. Occorre quindi, innanzitutto, identificare i contorni del problema, escludendo le differenze e mettendo a fuoco le diseguaglianze che a volte si traducono in discriminazioni di fatto, se non di diritto. Molti indicatori sono stati introdotti negli anni più recenti per dare conto delle disuguaglianze di genere con varie analisi quantitative, ed è un primo passo. È anche necessario osservare come avviene la selezione degli indicatori, come essi mutino nel tempo, se e come si influenzano reciprocamente, per capire infine quali sono i meccanismi comportamentali che li determinano. La scelta è ampia e forse si potrebbe tentare una gerarchia concettuale perché non è detto che sia evidente quale sia l'aspetto più importante, quale sia il tipo di diseguaglianza più inaccettabile. Nel corso degli anni la ricerca su questi temi ha percorso varie vie spesso partendo dalle differenze economiche, di occupazione, di retribuzione, di reddito, di responsabilità. È stato
... İstatistiksel ayrımcılık daha çok kârı maksimize etmek veya maliyeti en aza indirmek amacında olan işverenler tarafından kullanılmaktadır. Beğeni temelli ayrımcılık ise işverenlerin, çalışanların ve müşterilerin cinsiyet, dış görünüş ve etnik köken gibi konulardaki tercihlerinin veya onlara yönelik ön yargılarının işe alım kararlarını etkilemesidir (Erikson vd., 2017;Phelps, 1972). ...
Bu bölüm kapsamında, çalışma hayatında obez bireylerin yaşantılarını ve obeziteye yönelik damgalayıcı tutum ve algıları tespit etmek amacıyla bir saha araştırması kurgulanmıştır. Saha araştırmasında, amaçlı örnekleme ve kartopu örnekleme yöntemi kullanılarak, hizmet sektörü çalışanlarından (sağlık, eğitim, güvenlik, ulaşım); obez birey ve obezite kavramları-na yönelik akıllarına gelen ilk kelimeleri belirli bir sınırlama olmaksızın yazmaları istenmiş, ayrıca çalışma hayatında obez bireylerin yaşayacakları sorunlara yönelik düşünceleri sorgu-lanmıştır. Araştırmaya 64 hizmet sektörü çalışanı (35 Erkek, 29 Kadın) gönüllü olarak ka-tılmıştır. Araştırma kapsamında, yapılandırılmış soru formu tercih edilmiş, elde edilen veri-ler, içerik analizi ve tematik analize tabi tutulmuştur. Verilerin geçerlilik ve güvenilirliğinin sağlanması amacıyla iki doktor öğretim üyesi ve doktora tezinde nitel araştırma yöntemi kullanmış olan bir öğretim görevlisinin katılımıyla komite gerçekleştirilmiştir. Analiz sonuç-larının görselleştirilmesi amacıyla Maxqda2020 nitel analiz programından yararlanılmıştır. Araştırma sonuçları ve yazarlar tarafından yapılan literatür incelemesi sonucunda "obez bireye yönelik damgalama", "obezlere yönelik işe alım ayrımcılığı" ve "iş yerinde obeziteyi etkileyen faktörler ve obez bireylerin iş yerinde yaşadıkları sorunlar" olmak üzere 3 ana tema belirlenmiş, ilgili temalar araştırma sonuçları ve katılımcı ifadeleri literatür ile desteklenerek detaylı şekilde incelenmiştir. Obez bireylere yönelik damgalayıcı ifadeleri ve algıları tespit etmek amacıyla yapılan pilot araştırmada hizmet sektörü çalışanlarından obez birey ifadesine yönelik akıllarına gelen ilk kelimeleri (kavram ve ifadeleri) yazmaları istenmiş, bu kapsamda katılımcılardan 686 kelime toplanmıştır. Söz konusu kelimeler içerisinde 137 farklı kelimenin tekrar ettiği tespit edilmiştir.
... For example, discrimination may largely result from a relatively deeply rooted distaste toward outgroup members (taste-based discrimination; Becker, 2010). It may also be a result of widespread prejudices and stereotypes, by which officials (similar to a general population) automatically associate ethnicity and professions with certain negative traits (statistical discrimination; Phelps, 1972), which affects their behavior regardless of the organizational context. Therefore, the variations in discrimination between public service providers, such as schools, should simply reflect the variations in discriminatory attitudes between their employees. ...
Recent studies argue that underperforming public organizations are more prone to stereotyping behavior and discrimination. However, empirical research concerning this subject is limited and focuses only on employment discrimination based on ethnicity. This article is the first to study the relationship between organizational performance and discrimination against clients/costumers. It also takes socioeconomic (SES) discrimination into account. This study is based on a large-scale correspondence experiment in which Swedish school principals were randomly contacted via email by parents interested in enrolling their children; the parents had Arabic-or Swedish-sounding names and were engaged in professions associated with a low or high SES. The results show no clear relationship between client discrimination and student test scores and grades. Hence, the findings of previous studies may not be generalizable to client discrimination and/or other national contexts, and client discrimination may be a result of mechanisms operating in all types of organizations (e.g., discriminatory attitudes).
... Theoretically, the following two mechanisms can drive ethnic discrimination in hiring decisions: statistical discrimination and taste-based discrimination. The first mechanism, namely, statistical discrimination, assumes that employers obtain imperfect information about applicants and use their beliefs (or stereotypes) about an ethnic group to infer the productivity of its group members (Phelps 1972;Arrow 1973). Furthermore, even when employers obtain equal information regarding ethnic majority and minority applicants, employers judge ethnic majority productivity better than ethnic minority productivity because of cultural differences and a lack of knowledge of the minority group (Altonji and Blank 1999). ...
The existence and mechanisms of ethnic discrimination in hiring decisions have been extensively studied, but the following two gaps remain: non-Western societies and taste-based discrimination. In this contribution, we investigate whether ethnic discrimination and its mechanisms are similarly observable in the Japanese labour market. Additionally, to reflect Becker’s initial idea, we decompose the sources of taste-based discrimination into employers’ preferences and societal preferences (i.e. perceived co-workers’ and customers’ preferences) and determine which and how preferences drive ethnic discrimination. We conducted factorial survey experiments via web surveys in Japan targeting HR professionals/employers working in almost all industries. The results show that immigrants are severely disadvantaged in hiring. Decomposing taste-based discrimination shows that only employers’ preferences contribute to discrimination, whereas societal preferences do not influence discrimination. However, the magnitude of the effects of employers’ preferences on discrimination depends on societal preferences as follows: hiring decisions are less dependent on employer attitudes towards socially preferred groups than those towards socially non-preferred groups. This study suggests that ethnic discrimination is observable even outside of Western societies and that taste-based discrimination is a more complicated process than expected in previous studies.
This paper studies the effect of competition on ethnic discrimination by carrying out a field experiment in the context of the rice market in Bangladesh. We recruit professional rice buyers (middlemen) to act as judges in a rice competition by providing a quality rating and a price quote for rice samples that we randomly associate with farmers bearing ethnic majority or minority names. First, we find that there is no ethnic difference in buyers’ evaluation of rice quality. Second, we find that local buyers, who have local monopsony power, discriminate against ethnic minority farmers by quoting a lower price for their rice relative to that of ethnic majority farmers. Third, we find that wholesale buyers, who face fierce competition in the marketplace, do not price discriminate against ethnic minority farmers. A second lab-in-the-field experiment and survey information indicate that both local and wholesale buyers are prejudiced against ethnic minority farmers. This suggests that market competition can eliminate the discrimination of wholesale buyers.<br/
Closing wage differentials between the minimum and the maximum, floor and ceiling, has yet to reverse unfair gendered wage differentials. This chapter, on Sexist wages first divides the inequalities faced by women into (i) vertical and (ii) horizontal, meaning between women being (i) under-represented in the better-waged jobs and over-represented in the poorer-waged ones; plus (ii) waged unequally when doing the self-same job as men. The chapter unpacks the possible reasons for both forms of wage inequality, from human capital to sexism. Sexism wins, hands down. Stereotypes of both gender and jobs stubbornly strain the wage-wellbeing relationship for women. Effective and promising remedies for shifting sexist mindsets are not primarily ‘psychological,’ or psychologised. Instead, they include organisational levers like quotas for (i) vertical wage equality, and living wage policies for (ii) horizontal wage equality.
ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any references for this publication.