Affirmative Action

In this commentary, senior research associate Laudan Aron explores the dark side of a booming business -- matching American men with foreign women -- and what should be done to protect "mail-order brides."

Racial discrimination clearly persists in the labor market, though it is more powerful against some groups of minorities than others. While employer discrimination occurs less frequently than in earlier generations, its direct and indirect effects likely remain important. A range of approaches might be useful in reducing hiring discrimination, though the cost-effectiveness of each is not really known right now.

In this paper we review the research evidence on the effects of affirmative action in employment, university admissions and government procurement. We consider effects on both equity (or distribution) as well as efficiency. Overall, we find that affirmative action does redistribute jobs, university admissions and government contracts away from white males towards minorities and females, though the overall magnitudes of these shifts are relatively modest. We also find that affirmative action shifts jobs and university admissions to minorities who have weaker credentials, but there is little solid evidence to date of weaker labor market performance among its beneficiaries. While those students admitted to universities under affirmative action have weaker grades and higher dropout rates than their white counterparts at selective schools, they seem to benefit overall in terms of higher graduation rates and later salaries. Affirmative action also generates positive externalities for the minority and low-income communities (in terms of better medical services and labor market contacts), and perhaps for employers and universities as well. More research on a variety of these issues is also clearly needed.

Affirmative action is a program in flux--regardless of the U.S. Supreme Court's rulings on the University of Michigan cases. New issues and changes in rationale and objectives are shaping its evolution. Panelists at this Urban Institute-Georgetown Public Policy Institute forum discussed the changing approaches to affirmative action, considered recent evidence on the program's effectiveness, and debated how affirmative action should be evolving in the 21st century.

In March, 1998, the Urban Institute, with support from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), convened a conference that involved many of the best-known researchers working on the measurement of discrimination. The goals of the conference were to explore the feasibility and merits of creating a national report card on discrimination, assess the role that paired testing and other social science methodologies might play in its formulation, and identify the pilot research needed for the report card's full implementation.