“They're Just Too Lazy to Work”: Discrimination in the Labor Market

Abstract

Because the nature of one's work is strongly tied to one's general perceived worth in society, work will also be an important determinant of one's general well-being and social status. By institutionalizing the differential allocation of various kinds of jobs to different social groups, societies create and maintain group-based social dominance. In this chapter we examine evidence concerning the second arc in the circle of oppression, employment discrimination. In addition to arguing that disparate outcomes in employment are a major cause of group dominance, this review will enable us to test certain key theoretical hypotheses. First, we will test social dominance theory's (SDT's) prediction that institutional discrimination is systematically directed against women. Second, we will test SDT's prediction that discrimination against subordinate men is greater than that against subordinate women, the subordinate male target hypothesis (SMTH). Third, by surveying studies conducted across as many societies as have been systematically studied, we can then explore the robustness of gender discrimination, arbitrary-set discrimination, and the SMTH across different nations and particular dominance-subordinate relations. A secondary goal of this review is to examine possible factors that will either mitigate or exacerbate employment discrimination. In addition, this review will allow us to assess other theoretical explanations for employment discrimination, as well as to reveal where further research on employment discrimination is needed. As in the preceding chapter, we will begin this exploration with soft evidence and then progress to increasingly harder evidence of employment discrimination against members of subordinate groups.