Page 423 - Discrimination at Work The Psychological and Organizational Bases

CH AO AND NGU YEN
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men over women. Chan, Law, and Kwok (1992) believed there were similar
discriminatory practices in socialist China after the economic reforms in
the 1980s because the government was less willing to put resources into
promoting gender equality. It is now difficult for a female college gradu­
ate to find a good job in Beijing; even government departments and social
organizations would give hiring preferences to male graduates instead
of female graduates with higher grades. Cultural stereotypes regarding
gender roles can offer resistance to efforts to promote gender equality at
work.
Race
In this section, we broadly define race-based discrimination as discrimina­
tory practices and policies against workers on grounds of skin color or eth­
nic origin (racism), national origin (xenophobism), and social origin (e.g.,
caste or birth). This definition is in accordance with the UN's international
conventions against racial discrimination (e.g., International Convention
on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, United Nations,
1969).
Race and/or Ethnicity Racist discriminatory practices vary around the
world. Extreme cases of skin color-based labor discrimination are found
in West African slavery (Khatchadourian, 2002) or in former apartheid
practices in South Africa. In Japan, ethnic minorities such as the Koreans
or the Ainus (aboriginal people of Japan) can be easily screened out from the
applicant pool based on their names or their facial features from required
pictures on applications (Madison, 1997).
Empirical evidence supports the existence of direct discriminatory se­
lection practices in organizations worldwide. For instance, in a classic
economic study using the method of "correspondent testing," Jowell and
Prescott-Clarke (1970) found that British employers might consciously or
nonconsciously engage in racial discriminatory employment practices such
as making fewer job offers or promotion offers to ethnic minority workers
and justifying these practices by the issue of person-organization fit (e.g.,
saying that a particular person "wouldn't fit in"). The researchers mailed
pairs of fictitious job applications to prospective employers in response to
their job ads. These pairs of job applications had comparable credentials
and qualifications but each applicant of a pair was either a White (a British
or Australian) or an ethnic minority person (e.g., being of Afro-Caribbean,
Indian, or Pakistani descent). The researchers found that minority appli­
cants generally received fewer invitations for a job interview (35%) than
Whites (78%). Other more recent British and Australian studies replicated
this pattern of findings (see a review in Riach & Rich, 2002).