Gender-based Affirmative Action Research Articles

Support for Affirmative Action in the Workplace: Gender, Race, and Sector Differences

Understanding attitudes toward affirmative action (AA) is important because it plays a critical role in the successful implementation of AA and hence diversity in organizations. The field of public sector human resource management (HRM) places a good deal of attention on diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA). The legal tool of affirmative action remains an important tool for achieving DEIA. This study examines gender, race, and sector differences as predictors of gender- and race-based support for AA in the workplace. Using data from the 2000 to 2018 General Social Survey (GSS), this article finds that Blacks and other persons of color offer more support than White men for race-based and gender-based AA. In addition, women offer more support than men for gender-based affirmative action, but only in the private sector. Overall, public sector employees do not support race- or gender-based AA programs more than their private sector counterparts.

Sub-Saharan women in engineering higher education: A literature-informed research tool

We present a review of higher education and education policy literature to understand better higher education institutions (HEIs) that serve sub-Saharan women in engineering. Our sub-Saharan women in engineering (SSAWE) literature-informed conceptual tool consists of five components to facilitate scholarly discussion about equity in higher education systems and facilitate interregional comparisons. The five components to study the educational experiences of women in engineering in this region include (1) a sociopolitical and historical national context for higher education policy, (2) critical discourse analysis of gender-based affirmative action policies, (3) enrollment and graduation data for female engineering students, (4) a longitudinal assessment of the employability of the engineering major, and (5) a qualitative campus climate survey of each country's flagship university. Our article introduces a conceptual investigation of the social, historical, and employment trends contextualizing engineering higher education in this region of Africa. We draw from existing literature about conceptual models predominantly used in higher education efforts toward undergraduate student success. When describing each SSAWE component, we include empirical and theoretical work that substantiates the need for each component and the benefits of the proposed methodology. More broadly speaking, this paper discusses how research employing the SSAWE framework could benefit key stakeholders who engage in policymaking. We suggest that sub-Saharan African universities should prioritize a regional comparative approach when designing support programs for underrepresented students in engineering. SSAWE will also generate more South–South comparisons that advance culturally situated analyses, contributing to higher education institutions’ advancementand the minoritized populations they serve.

Affirmative Action and Women in Uganda’s Public University Education

This article examines how Affirmative Action was used to govern access to higher education for the disadvantaged. In 1991, a gender-based Affirmative Action policy was incorporated into college admission in Uganda. Using existing empirical data at district and college levels, the article accounts for the categories of women for whom the Uganda’s Affirmative Action policy is most effective. The study found that Affirmative Action had a substantial effect. Sixty-six per cent of the sampled population would not have been admitted, had it not been for Affirmative Action. But the policy did not work for the historically disadvantaged; it worked for specific categories of women from specific regions, districts and high schools; on grounds that it was implemented for competitive reasons. The study provides relevant lessons for policy making in countries grappling with the challenges of high socio-economic inequality and higher returns to higher education.

The heterogeneous effect of affirmative action on performance

This paper experimentally investigates the effect of gender-based affirmative action (AA) on performance in the lab, focusing on a tournament environment. The tournament is based on GRE math questions commonly used in graduate school admission, and at which women are known to perform worse on average than men. We find heterogeneous effect of AA on female participants: AA lowers the performance of high-ability women and increases the performance of low-ability women. Our results are consistent with two possible mechanisms—one is that AA changes incentives differentially for low- and high-ability women, and the second is that AA triggers stereotype threat.

Identity construction in the workplace: Different reactions of ethnic minority groups to an organizational diversity policy in a French manufacturing company

This study investigates how a French manufacturing company responds to institutional forces concerning its diversity policy and how employees react to it, particularly those belonging to minority groups not addressed by the policy. Such questions are relevant to the legitimacy of organizational diversity policies and employees’ perceptions of diversity in particular environments. We analyzed data from 35 interviews to characterize organizational efforts to comply with regulations in the form of gender-affirmative actions. Among ethnic minorities, there were three different reactions to gender-based affirmative action policies that were not accompanied by ethnicity-based affirmative action policies: indifference, focus on gender issues, and discontent. We propose three identity constructions could explain these reactions: dissociation, selective association, and heightened identity, respectively. Together, our results demonstrate trickle-down effects from institutional forces to organizational diversity policy, and hence to construction of identity by minorities within the organization.

“We want you in the Workplace, but only in a Skirt!” Social Dominance Orientation, Gender-Based Affirmative Action and the Moderating Role of Benevolent Sexism

Although affirmative action based on race and/or ethnicity is a widely debated political issue within the public sphere, relatively few studies have examined the correlates of people’s attitudes towards gender-based affirmative action. The few studies that have assessed this topic suggest that both Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) and sexism are independently associated with people’s opposition to affirmative action for women. The current study expands upon this literature by investigating the moderating effect of Benevolent Sexism (BS)—a dimension of sexism that sees women as weak and in need of protection—on the relationship between SDO and support for gender-based affirmative action within a nationally representative sample of New Zealand adults (N = 5697). Specifically, we argue that protective aspects of BS will weaken the previously-identified positive relationship between SDO and opposition to affirmative action for women. As expected, our results showed that SDO was positively, whereas BS was negatively, associated with opposition to gender-based affirmative action. Also as predicted, BS attenuated the relationship between SDO and opposition to affirmative action for women. These results replicate and extend past research by demonstrating that SDO is an ideology that works to maintain existing unequal structures. We also show that part of the insidious nature of BS is that it offers women ostensible short-term benefits.

Familial Origins of Gender Role Attitudes

Extensive public opinion research on gender-related attitudes has focused on identifying and understanding the dynamics of individual gender role attitudes, as well as attitudes toward more explicitly policy-related and political issues broadly related to gender. One stream of research considers egalitarianism in a generic sense as in inquiries about whether men and women should have equal roles in public affairs (e.g., Jennings 2006; Sanbonmatsu 2002, chapter 3) and evaluations of the women's movement (e.g., Huddy, Neely, and Lafay 2000). Another line of research has solicited opinions about specific gender-related policies and issues, including support for the ERA (Mansbridge 1986; Plutzer 1991), abortion (e.g., Bolzendahl and Myers 2004; Wilcox and Carr 2010), gender-based affirmative action (Kane and Whipkey 2009), the suitability of women for political life (Sanbonmatsu 2002, chapter 3), and a variety of other issues and policies often noted as being especially relevant for women (Sapiro and Shames 2010).

Affirmative Action and Stereotype Threat

In spite of the apparent success of affirmative action (AA) in the past, many oppose such policies. Opponents argue that the cost of attaining proportional representation by preferential policies is too high, reducing the quality of selected groups and stigmatizing members of the protected class. One way in which preferential policies might harm groups they are designed to benefit is by producing stereotype threat; that is, cueing a negative stereotype may lead individuals to conform to it. AA, by definition, singles out disadvantaged groups and therefore may unintentionally remind beneficiaries of relevant negative stereotypes and prime a stereotype threat effect. This paper investigates experimentally whether gender-based affirmative action, in the form of a quota, may have this unintended consequence. Using quantitative Graduate Record Examination (GRE) questions, we find that while affirmative action has a positive effect on the performance of non-high-ability women, it negatively affects high-ability women in our sample. Interestingly, there is no evidence that women (of any ability level) in the sample exert less effort under AA or in single-sex competition, or would benefit by doing so. Hence, these findings are consistent with affirmative action having an unintended negative consequence due to stereotype threat. Interestingly, men are not affected by the affirmative action policy regardless of their measured ability in this task. These results should be taken with caution, as this is the first study looking at the stereotype threat effect of AA.

Minding the gap: attitudes toward affirmative action in South Africa

Since its introduction, affirmative action has become an increasingly controversial policy to address labour market inequalities in South Africa. Yet, in spite of this public debate, nationally representative, empirical research on patterns of opposition to and support for the redress policy remains relatively circumscribed. In this article, attitudinal data collected over the past decade is employed to examine the factors that influence these perceptions, and the extent to which they have been changing. The results reveal that attitudes to race- and gender-based affirmative action in employment have been favourable on aggregate over the last decade. The specified beneficiary of affirmative action appears to matter, with more positive evaluations evident when the policies target women and disabled persons than when racial disadvantage is targeted. Furthermore, while there is a broad-based, resolute belief in racial equality in principle, there is less agreement on the implementation of particular redress policies. Affirmative action for instance enjoys less support than compensatory policies or those focused on addressing class-based disadvantage. An element of self-interest appears to be informing evaluations among designated beneficiary groups, with black respondents more inclined than other population groups to support race-based affirmative action and women more partial to gender-based affirmative action than men. While the beneficiaries of affirmative action have typically been the better educated and skilled among the designated groups, highest support for this policy is reported by the more marginalized and vulnerable who are least likely to have personally benefitted from affirmative action implementation to date. This support may reflect a sense of collective self-interest or possibly an expectation that this redress policy will bring benefits in the future. Finally, views on whether affirmative action is producing a more skilled workforce and socially cohesive society are again broadly positive, though the profile of those believing in such outcomes deviates somewhat from those supporting affirmative action generally. In this instance, those least likely to have gained from affirmative action in practice are those least confident in the policy’s outcomes, possibly due to a gap between perceived performance of affirmative action policy and expected benefits.

From California to Michigan: Race, Rationality, and Neoliberal Governmentality

In this essay, we examine recent developments in battles over race- and gender-based affirmative action across a 10-year period from the California Civil Rights Initiative (1996) to the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (2006). While affirmative action policies have historically been contested within a paradigm of redistribution, our analysis of the Michigan case suggests a new strategic emphasis on disputing the legitimacy of the state's recognition of social difference. Drawing on the work of critical race and critical rhetoric scholars, as well as social theory on citizenship in the post-soul moment, we argue that a neoliberal understanding of difference and neoliberalism's appropriations of multiculturalism have allowed the anti-affirmative action movement in Michigan to avoid racist appeals completely by invoking the neoliberal myth of free, entrepreneurial individuals against a meddling, inefficient, authoritarian state. Further, we find that these shifts have permitted assaults on the positive consideration of gender—a strategy that was not possible when debates were centered over competing claims of racism. Finally, we argue that these strategic adjustments since California have enabled the anti-affirmative action movement to discursively align itself with contemporary neoliberal assaults on a range of social and cultural rights.

Predictors of Public Support for Gender-Related Affirmative Action

Drawing on data from the General Social Survey during the period from 1996 through 2006, we explore predictors of support for gender-related affirmative action in the United States. Following the literature on race-based affirmative action, we identify three main domains of predictors, each of which also resonates well with themes within scholarship on gender: interests; gender-related attitudes; and general stratification beliefs. In multivariate analyses, at least some predictors within each domain are significant. We conclude that like support for race-based affirmative action, support for gender-based affirmative action is based on a combination of interests, gender attitudes, and general stratification beliefs, but that gender attitudes are less important in shaping such support than racial beliefs are in shaping support for race-based affirmative action. The implications of these findings for the literature on race-related affirmative action as well as for the literature on gender-related attitudes are considered.

Minority Faculty Voices on Diversity in Academic Medicine: Perspectives From One School

To examine the perceptions and experiences of ethnic minority faculty at University of California-San Francisco regarding racial and ethnic diversity in academic medicine, in light of a constitutional measure outlawing race- and gender-based affirmative action programs by public universities in California. In 2005, underrepresented minority faculty in the School of Medicine at University of California-San Francisco were individually interviewed to explore three topics: participants' experiences as minorities, perspectives on diversity and discrimination in academic medicine, and recommendations for improvement. Interviews were tape-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and subsequently coded using principles of qualitative, text-based analysis in a four-stage review process. Thirty-six minority faculty (15 assistant professors, 11 associate professors, and 10 full professors) participated, representing diversity across specialties, faculty rank, gender, and race/ethnicity. Seventeen were African American, 16 were Latino, and 3 were Asian. Twenty participants were women. Investigators identified four major themes: (1) choosing to participate in diversity-related activities, driven by personal commitment and institutional pressure, (2) the gap between intention and implementation of institutional efforts to increase diversity, (3) detecting and reacting to discrimination, and (4) a need for a multifaceted approach to mentorship, given few available minority mentors. Minority faculty are an excellent resource for identifying strategies to improve diversity in academic medicine. Participants emphasized the strong association between effective mentorship and career satisfaction, and many delineated unique mentoring needs of minority faculty that persist throughout academic ranks. Findings have direct application to future institutional policies in recruitment and retention of underrepresented minority faculty.

Opposition to redistributive employment policies for women: The role of policy experience and group interest

We examined whether group interest affected ideological beliefs and attitudes towards redistributive policies among men and women. We found that group interest influenced meritocratic and neo-sexist beliefs and support for gender-based affirmative action and comparable worth policies. Men and women differed in their ideological beliefs and support for the redistributive policies only when they had conscious experience with these policies. Those with policy experience expressed policy attitudes that corresponded with their gender group's interests, while those lacking such experience did not. We also noted group interest effects within each gender: men who had conscious experience with the policies expressed more opposition and greater neo-sexism and meritocratic beliefs than did men who were not consciously experienced with these policies. In contrast, consciously experienced women expressed more policy support than did their not consciously experienced counterparts. Overall, our findings indicate that group interest is an important determinant of policy attitudes and related ideological beliefs.

Adarand, Grutter, and Gratz

Does affirmative action in federal human resources management (HRM) matter? Responding to the Supreme Court’s decision in Adarand v. Pena (1995), the Clinton administration instructed federal agencies not to use racial, ethnic, or gender-based affirmative action classifications in their HRM programs without explicit approval from the Department of Justice. The Court’s decisions in Grutter v. Bollinger (2003) and Gratz v. Bollinger (2003) suggest that it may now be constitutionally feasible to strengthen affirmative action in federal HRM. However, analysis of the impact of the Clinton administration’s policy change leads to the conclusion that constitutional flexibility to establish racial, ethnic, and gender goals and timetables to promote federal workforce diversity simply may not make much difference, except possibly for the smallest minority groups.

Progress, Opportunity, and Backlash: Explaining Attitudes toward Gender-Based Affirmative Action

A wealth of research attests to the importance of interest, prejudice, and stratification beliefs in the explanation of race-based affirmative action attitudes. Little research, however, has been done on the importance of interest, prejudice, and stratification beliefs in the explanation of gender-based affirmative action attitudes. This study examines whether these three well-documented explanations are as effective in explaining attitudes toward gender-based affirmative action as they are in explaining attitudes towards race-based affirmative action. Logistic regression analysis of 1996 General Social Survey data reveals that explanations of attitudes toward gender-based affirmative action are related to but distinct from attitudes toward race-based affirmative action. Whereas race, a component of interest explanations, is a strong predictor of race-based affirmative action attitudes, gender is not a strong predictor of gender-based affirmative action attitudes. All three explanations work less well in the determination of gender-based affirmative action attitudes than they do for race-based affirmative action attitudes. Additional research is necessary before the origins of support for and opposition to gender-based affirmative action are truly understood.

Attitudes and Beliefs About Gender-Based Affirmative Action in the New South Africa

Attitudes and Beliefs About Gender-Based Affirmative Action in the New South Africa

Justifying Gender-Based Affirmative Action under United States v. Virginia's "Exceedingly Persuasive Justification" Standard

Justifying Gender-Based Affirmative Action under United States v. Virginia's "Exceedingly Persuasive Justification" Standard

Justifying Gender-Based Affirmative Action under United States v. Virginia's Exceedingly Persuasive Justification Standard

Justifying Gender-Based Affirmative Action under United States v. Virginia's Exceedingly Persuasive Justification Standard

Applied demography, affirmative action and rapidly evolving case law: A comment on Siegel and Morrison

The papers preceding this comment are excellent articles by noted demographers working at the intersection of public policy and demography. Morrison's article describes a method for determining whether a court ordered desegregation program of magnet schools succeeded in attracting students from suburban areas outside of the district or merely drew students from other schools within the district. Siegel's article discusses the need for statistical guidelines for the evaluation of the geographic compactness of redistricting plans. Both articles stem from litigation in which the authors were serving as expert witnesses and both relate to the current national debate over federally enforced affirmative action programs. As the national debate on affirmative action has intensified, an increasingly conservative Supreme Court has sought ways to curb or eliminate such programs. During its 1994-1995 term the Court issued three rulings in this area each decided by the same 5 to 4 split (Rehnquist, O'Connor, Kennedy, Scalia and Thomas in the majority and Blackmun, Ginsburg, Souter and Stephens in the minority). The first of these rulings Adarand Constructors Inc. v. Pena held that race-based affirmative action programs involving minority set asides must be narrowly tailored to further compelling governmental interests. Interestingly, this requirement for the application of a strict scrutiny standard for racially-based preferences was not applied to gender-based affirmative action programs. The other two cases, Missouri v. Jenkins and Miller v. Johnson are directly connected to the two articles being discussed. Each is basically saying that affirmative action programs that are racially or ethnically-based are only constitutional if, under the standard of strict scrutiny, they can be shown to serve a compelling state interest. Demographers serving as expert witnesses must choose between two alternative roles. The first is an advocacy role described by Smith (1993) as, 'professionally competent demographic analysis that will help advance the client's interests'. Smith described the other role as that of educator in which the expert behaves as an impartial observer whose conclusions may or may not be helpful to the client. These articles showcase the involvement of two prominent demographers in high profile cases of national importance.1 They also illustrate these two approaches to serving as an expert witness, with Morrison appearing to be more of an advocate and Siegel more of an educator.

Affirmative Action and Beyond: A Case for a Backward-Looking Gender- and Race-Based Policy

This article defends race- and gender-based affirmative action against recent attacks by liberals and conservatives. It argues that a need-based approach is not an adequate substitute for the present practice. It makes this argument by demonstrating that there are three independent moral foundations for a race and gender approach to affirmative action and that these are not adequately met by the need-based alternative.