Measuring Racial Discrimination (2004) / Chapter Skim
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11 Cumulative Disadvantages and Racial Discrimination
11 Cumulative Disadvantages and Racial Discrimination
Pages 223-246
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From page 223... ...
The discussion expands the potential impact of racial discrimination to include cumulative effects over time, as well as the interaction between effects of discrimination experienced in one domain and at one point in time and events that occur in other domains and at other points in time. Our concern here is with effects that operate over time.
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From page 224... ...
For example, discriminatory behavior in teacher evaluations of racially disadvantaged students in early elementary school may increase the probability of future discrimination in class assignments or tracking in middle school. Similarly, in the labor market, discrimination in hiring or performance evaluations may affect outcomes (and even reinforce discrimination)
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From page 225... ...
Discrimination has cumulative effects when a discriminatory incident affects not only the immediate outcome but also future outcomes in one's own lifetime or in later generations. For example, slavery or racial exclusion of certain groups in the past that limited occupational earnings may have negatively affected wealth accumulation for future generations among these groups (Sacerdote, 2002)
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From page 226... ...
While individual discriminatory behaviors can certainly have cumulative effects, the ways in which discriminatory effects are "transmitted" across domains and over generations often depend on social organization. For instance, policies and processes that produce inequalities in housing and labor markets (e.g., segregated neighborhoods and occupations)
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From page 227... ...
AVENUES THROUGH WHICH CUMULATIVE DISCRIMINATION MAY OCCUR Cumulative Discrimination Across Generations Discriminatory effects can cumulate over lifetimes and across many generations; that is, discrimination against parents in one generation may directly affect outcomes for their children and indirectly affect life opportunities for subsequent generations (e.g., through poorer education or poorer health)
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From page 228... ...
Thus, after slavery ended, former slaves caught up to free blacks, and the large literacy gap that existed between them disappeared.3 Discrimination Across Processes Within a Domain As individuals engage in sequential interactions in the labor or housing markets or within the health care, criminal justice, or education systems, discriminatory experiences may have cumulative effects. For instance, discrimination early in one's career may affect performance evaluations, promotions, and wages.
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From page 229... ...
Single instances of discrimination that affect key outcomes may have cumulative effects even if no future discrimination is experienced. Even more problematic, discriminatory effects at one point in time may place an individual at greater risk of future discrimination, leading to even larger cumulative effects.
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From page 230... ...
. Although these findings suggest that the housing market affects labor market outcomes, studies of firm relocation indicate how exogenous changes in the labor market also affect residential location and housing (Fernandez, 1997; Zax, 1989)
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From page 231... ...
Not surprisingly, these disparities in behavior led to a public discussion focused on individual behavioral choices rather than on past discriminatory processes. The panel understands that individuals must be held responsible for their actions in the criminal justice system as well as in the education system or the labor market.
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From page 232... ...
Current measures of discrimination that focus on identifying whether discrimination is occurring in a particular domain at a given point in time cannot capture such feedback effects, by which past discrimination affects attitudes, expectations, and behaviors, leading to ongoing and ever widening disparities in outcomes over time. It may be very difficult in such situations to identify empirically a "primary cause" or to measure the share of a
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From page 233... ...
The developmental framework of Sampson and Laub (1997:135) for understanding continued criminal behavior is based not only on individual behavior but also on "a dynamic conceptualization of social control over the life course." They believe cumulative disadvantage is the result of negative interactions
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From page 234... ...
It is not obvious how one would identify and trace the causal factors involved through actual longitudinal data. The model is also quite specific to one particular type of disadvantage -- related to the labeling and treatment of adolescent offenders -- and is thus not directly applicable to a large area of cumulative disadvantage or discrimination.
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From page 235... ...
and health outcomes within a population. Because this empirical literature is some of the only research linking past experiences of discrimination in one domain with adverse outcomes in another, we describe it further here; as discussed below, however, it may be difficult to draw causal conclusions from much of this work.
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From page 236... ...
Studies that relate past racial disparities to current health outcomes may not account for unmeasured factors, such as diet and exercise, that may be correlated with race and the observed outcome but that may not be due to discrimination. Analysis that relies on self-reported past measures of discrimination may also be difficult to interpret in any causal way.
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From page 237... ...
(1998:214) explain the cycle of feedback effects in the labor market for women: "Discrimination against women in the labor market reinforces traditional gender roles in the family, while adherence to traditional roles by women provides a rationale for labor market discrimination." Even a small amount of discrimination can have large effects if women are discouraged from investing in skills, are more likely to opt out of the labor force, and are more likely to rely on their husbands for economic support, hence reinforcing gender roles at home.
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From page 238... ...
There have been efforts to estimate and measure these feedback effects within the labor market literature; as in other areas, however, it is challenging to measure the right variables and to resolve the identification issues involved in tracing actual discrimination effects over time. MEASURING CUMULATIVE DISCRIMINATION In earlier chapters, we discussed the major difficulties involved in measuring credibly and accurately the impact of discrimination within a domain at any point in time.
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From page 239... ...
In the previous section, we described three efforts to construct such models to describe dynamic processes within the criminal justice system, the health care system, and the labor market. Effective models of dynamic and longterm processes are still highly limited, however, and much work remains to be done in this area.
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From page 240... ...
As discussed in Chapter 8, however, longitudinal data are essential for capturing cumulative effects over time for the same individuals. In the education domain, for example, Phillips et al.
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From page 241... ...
Such entry-level racial differences have cumulative effects over time as a result of differential returns to experience. Calculating experiencewage profiles among different populations in the labor market may reveal something about cumulative disadvantage (if not cumulative discrimination)
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From page 242... ...
literature relies on self-reports of discrimination, it is important to develop other methods for assessing when discrimination occurs. Research in social psychology has shown that people may underestimate the frequency of discriminatory events in their own life compared with discrimination against their group (Crosby, 1984; Taylor et al., 1991)
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From page 243... ...
If discrimination in the educational system is impeding the skill level achieved by racially disadvantaged students, this is taken as a predetermined factor in the labor market. The emphasis of such an equation is not on measuring the cumulative effects of discrimination but on determining whether there is any evidence of discrimination within the labor market only.
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From page 244... ...
classic paper examining the extent to which the economic and educational disadvantages of the current generation of blacks can be explained by the economic and educational disadvantages of their parents. This kind of model is a special case of Duncan's "status attainment" or "life-cycle" model of attainment; it is used in various areas to examine cumulative effects (e.g., Phillips et al., 1998)
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From page 245... ...
Estimating the cumulative effects of discrimination over time is a difficult and challenging task and only a limited number of studies attempt to do so. Some theories of discrimination and disadvantage describe ways in which individual behaviors, societal influences, institutional practices, and exposure to risk may cumulate over time to affect future life choices and opportunities.
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From page 246... ...
Although existing longitudinal data sets are necessarily limited in the data they provide to investigate discrimination (or any other topic) , they contain long-term information about behaviors and outcomes over time and across generations that allows the estimation of more dynamic models.
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