The Proximate Causes of Employment Discrimination

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].. American Sociological Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Contemporary Sociology. knowledge that can be used to eradicate job disH crimination. If sociological research is to conH tribute to the battle against injustice, we need to direct more attention to how inequality is proH duced. In the following pages, I suggest that research findings from our sister discipline, social psychology, can help us understand both the original and the proximate causes of employH. .. . ... .. ment c lScrlmlnatlon. 1 nls sometlmes lnterc 1So ciplinary) approach that distinguishes original and proximate causes may be useful and even necessary in other specialty areas where socioloH gists seek to create a more just society. In the twentieth century, most sociologists concerned with reducing employment discrimiH nation assumed that once we demonstrated that discrimination persisted, our evidence would find its way to policy makers who would eradiH cate this discrimination. Thus, sociologists and other social scientists developed a variety of High on the agenda of sociology is to understand the origins and consequences of inequality. This understanding is potentially one of our imporH tant contributions to public policy. Examples of such sociological research topics include access to quality education, welfare "reform" and poverty, and the amount of job competition between immigrants and nativeHborn lowHwage workers. In this essay, which focuses on gender and race/ethnic discrimination in the workH place, I argue that the standard sociological approaches to explaining workplace discriminaH tion have not been very fruitful in producing 8 These ideas benefited from the comments of Lowell Hargens and William Bielby and of the Contemporary Sociology editors and editorial board members. I was also helped by talking with Marilynn Brewer. Any logical or factual errors are entirely my responsibility. 320 Symposia innovative techniques to assess the extent of employment discrimination. Researchers conH ducted sophisticated analyses establishing race and gender disparities in various employment outcomes, net of qualifications; confirmed through surveys employers' aversion to hiring In terms of our policy impact, however, we might have spent our time better in counseling labor market entrants or working as human resource …