Project 3

U.S. Adults Awareness of Employment Inequality

Introduction

We are students from the College of Coastal Georgia, and we researched inequality in employment in hopes of discovering how aware our participants are of any inequalities that occur when it comes to employment. Two possible views that our audience may have is that employment inequality does not exist, or that it definitely is an issue in our world that needs to change. Our group can all agree that there certainly is inequality that occurs when it comes to employment. The two differing sides to whether or not employment inequality occurs do conflict with one another. There could be arguments from certain individuals that people's "problems" in the workplace are their own and not the responsibilities of others. There could also be people who are blind to discrimination in the workplace, or see it and choose to turn a blind eye. To those who do not believe that there is inequality in the workforce, we hope to provide facts, statistics and more to prove to them that this is a real problem. A second audience for our project will be our instructor and also others out there who are not currently employed but should still be aware of this issue. We plan on addressing the needs of both audiences at once. This research will discover in depth how discrimination in the workplace comes into play, as well as which groups are more at risk for discrimination. A potential hypothesis could be that with this education on discrimination and inequality in the workplace, more people will be inclined to take action. The more people who are aware of the issue, the more likely we can make a change. Our purpose is to make our audience aware of the current inequality that is present in employment today as well as determine exactly what type of discrimination goes on, and which groups are most affected. We are working on a call to action to improve overall equality in employment. With our research, we hope to bring about change and advocate for a safer work environment that eliminates any type of discrimination.

Discussion

One study by Mykal Leslie dives into some research on older workers with multiple sclerosis (MS) vs. younger workers with MS. The study describes any discrimination that workers with MS have experienced. The goal of the study was to distinguish whether age can indicate discrimination that occurs in the workplace. The way this study was carried out was by collecting data from the Integrated Mission System of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The results of this research concluded that for the most part, allegations filed by older workers with MS were more likely to be from Whites and Native Americans and less likely by African Americans. The same pattern follows for younger workers who have MS. However, “older workers with MS were more likely than the younger group to allege discrimination in issues related to demotion” (Leslie, 175). The data shows that the discrimination in the workplace had more to do with other factors aside from age, such as demographics. The main takeaway from this article is that some workplace inequality is present. Reasons such as having a disability can impact how workers are treated by others.

An article written by Leslie McCall discusses how despite the growing issue of inequality in the economy and workplace, Americans remain unconcerned. Inequality in employment dates back to the 1980s and it has not gotten better since. In fact, research suggests that is has increased in many aspects such as racial, cultural, gender, and age discrimination. “For instance, because Americans on average are less supportive of government tax and transfer policies, compared with the public in many other countries with similar or even lower levels of economic inequality, scholars often conclude that Americans must not be particularly concerned about inequality (refs. 8 and 12; cf. ref. 13).” (McCall) This quote shows that because Americans are unhappy with how how the government runs its economy, they choose to turn a blind eye when it comes to discrimination in the workplace. People, no matter what background they come from, stand up for what they believe and understand. “Namely, exposure to information about rising economic inequality in the United States can lead to greater skepticism regarding the extent to which opportunity to advance in America still exists.” (McCall). If adults in the U.S. had a better understanding on the exact injustices and discrimination that occurs everyday, right in front of them, then they would be more inclined to take a stand against it.

Discriminatory biases ironically have no preference in regards to who they choose to affect and degrade, and this point is made clear in an article title “Taking off the Blinders: A Comparative Study of University Students’ Changing Perceptions of Gender Discrimination in the Workplace From 2006 to 2013” by Stephanie Rader Sipe and 3 others. In this article, they choose to continue and improve on a study from 2006 that was meant to highlight the percentages of young men and women who anticipated the likelihood of gender discrimination in the workplace. Ultimately the study had found that the numbers between the study in 2006 and the present study were seemingly consistent, but with some surprising differences. In both studies, it was found that women tend to anticipate gender discrimination more than men, which is not surprising since this has been the case throughout history. However, in recent years, both genders of students have exercised growing concerns about the impact of gender discrimination for men (Rader Sipe, 244). In earlier years this idea would have been a laughable idea, but as men began to move into more traditionally female roles such as nurses, the recognition of organizational sexism towards men has increased. In fact, 75% of male nurses that were surveyed reported some form of discrimination (Rader Sipe, 235). This is but one example of how our understanding of discrimination in the workplace can be incomplete, and that, simply by ignoring the signs and ideas of change, we allow these injustices to permeate and infest our society for decades.

An article by Pamela Tolbert and Emilio Castilla discusses how despite the many policies and rules to prevent inequality in the workplace that are in place, there is little evidence to prove these policies are actually acknowledged in the workplace. "Given the millions of dollars spent on making and monitoring such changes, surprisingly little evidence exists on the efficacy of various policies and practices adopted by organizations to address the problems and to capture the benefits of having a demographically diverse workforce." (Tolbert, Castilla 3). A company can promote positivity and equality policies throughout the work environment, but it only means something if these rules are acknowledged. Additionally, if management and employees aren't actively reacting and taking action against the acts of inequality, then the policies mean nothing.

Conclusion

In conclusion, despite our small sample size, we were still able to gather enough results to analyze. Our results showed that a little under 50% of CCGA students have experienced or witnessed discrimination in the workplace. Over half of participants agreed that women's pay and salary should be equal to men's, which shows that there is an awareness of the gender pay gap in the workplace. Our results also showed that a little over half of participants felt fully respected by their employer. 11 of the 17 responses came from participants aged 18-24, 2 of the responses ages were 25-34, two responses were 35-44, one response age was 45-54, and the final last response age was 65-74. The surveys data showed that the majority of responses felt that neither religious, gender, or racial inequality existed in the workplace. The research that we completed states that “For instance, because Americans on average are less supportive of government tax and transfer policies, compared with the public in many other countries with similar or even lower levels of economic inequality, scholars often conclude that Americans must not be particularly concerned about inequality (refs. 8 and 12; cf. ref. 13).” (McCall) . The reasoning for the data results could be due to the fact that some employees are unhappy or uninterested in their workplace environment, resulting in poor attitudes and work ethic.

• Limitations

  • • Our study only obtained a total of 17 responses, which is much lower than we had envisioned. Ideally, we aimed for about 50-100 respondents. Since this goal was not met, we can assume that our study is not entirely representative of the entire CCGA campus. For example, about 70% of our participants were White, 24% Black, and 6% Hispanic. However, according to collegefactual.com, the College of Coastal Georgia campus is made up of 65.6% White, 19.1% Black, 6% Hispanic, 2% Asian, 1.3% non-resident alien, and 0.3% American Indian. We would have liked to have obtained more minority participants, given the circumstances of our study. As the study pertained to types of workplace discrimination, such as race, some more diverse respondents would have been beneficial. Therefore, our results cannot quite be generalizable to the CCGA campus as a whole. Other factors such as work ethic, attitude, and knowledge could also influence whether employees are respected in the workplace. Sometimes, people may confuse lack of respect for discrimination, while in reality, they may actually just not be the most respectable workers. For that reason, it can be hard to determine actual workplace discrimination that occurs in employment.

• For future research, we will make sure to obtain a larger sample size. To do so, we could use other strategies to encourage participants to take our survey. For example, maybe a mass email blast out to students and staff at the College of Coastal Georgia could be beneficial. Rather than just posting to the CCGA app, and getting our flyer posted to D2L, we could have also brought some flyers to the CCGA campus to post around the school.