The Impact of affirmative action on the US Labor Force. Research Paper

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The Impact of affirmative action on the US Labor Force
Introduction
In the United States, there are two types of policies that seek to enhance the position of minority groups in the labor market: affirmative action and the anti-discrimination laws. The anti-discrimination laws clearly forbid all types of discrimination based on race, gender, age, and religion in the labor market and housing. On the other hand, affirmative action is a set of procedures drawn by employers, governmental agencies, and educational institutions that go beyond anti-discrimination in the pursuit for equality across all social groups in the labor market (Smelser, Wilson & Mitchell 318). Affirmative action practices also include select practices in which minority groups and white women might have more favorable consideration compared to white male counterparts with equal qualification. The affirmative action laws are borne from a set of Executive Orders issued by the United States Presidents over the past seven decades but were never passed as federal legislation by Congress. Most of these orders were triggered by the belief that even after discrimination had been completed eradicated in the US, minority groups and women would still be left behind the average white males with regards to employment and education as a result of accumulated impacts of discrimination (Smelser, Wilson & Mitchell 320). The affirmative action policies, therefore, encouraged a limited selection of employers in the US to incorporate additional practices to enhance the economic status of minority groups. Women were later added to the disadvantaged groups. This paper provides evidence-based research on the impact of affirmative action on the US labor market (demand and supply).
Discussion
Variations in labor market performance indexes across gender and racial lines are associated with numerous factors, some of which are not measurable (Carruthers & Wanamaker 655). These factors include differences in educational attainment across the groups, the sectors in which the different groups work, the geographic locations of the country where the said groups are concentrated, and the level of discrimination at work. It is due to these factors that affirmative action policies seek to eradicate with a view of enhancing the economic welfare of traditionally discriminated groups that include women and racial minority groups. This section explores the impacts that affirmative action has had on the demand and supply of labor and the arguments that have been presented in support of affirmative action by its proponents. The section also examines the opinions that have been presented against affirmative action by its opponents and what economists can draw from these arguments (theoretically and empirically) with regards to the impact of affirmative action on the demand and supply of labor.
Most arguments in favor of affirmative action are borne from the claim that despite the implementation of Equal Employment Opportunity laws (EEO) in most governmental agencies for the better part of the past half a decade, the systematic barriers against women and minority groups in employment and education that these laws wer...