Government Vs Employment Rights

Does the government have a right to determine the employment practices of private companies; does a marketplace in which people trade without restriction is inherently unfair and hinders diversity. Today, the government dictates the terms on which labor can be traded in the workplace. In some cases companies that look for the best qualified may reflect an irrational bias such as racism or sexism. But an employer's natural impulse is to hire the best available employee and, thus, make more money.

It is worth pausing to consider what we know about the nature and extent of employment discrimination. The most extensive attempts to measure employment discrimination have generally been produced by labor economists in the form of hiring, wage, or occupational achievement differentials, audit-pair studies, and the volume of employment discrimination litigation. The different methods seek to isolate differences in wages or promotion between different race or gender groups using actual market data. The audit-pair approach is roughly an experimental method that seeks to pair individuals that are similar along all dimensions except race or gender, and then examine whether hiring, promotion, or salary outcomes differ. Another collection of studies explore how the volume of employment discrimination changes over time. Understanding all of this evidence varies. The market disparities must be distinguished from market discrimination and that much of the evidence is subject to practical criticism. The evidence indicates that earnings differentials between blacks and whites in the 1990's are

due to differences in skill than to discrimination within the labor market. Indeed, the race or gender differentials in employment are due in part to discrimination and in some to productivity or human capital characteristics.

The real debate is over how heavily to weight each of these two factors. Gender differentials generally narrowed in the 1980's-1990. This diminishing differential is due in part to falling wage rates for men in certain industries, along with an increase in human capital among women and legal pressure creating greater opportunities for women in the labor, force. As for racial discrimination, at least one study concludes that wage difference cannot be explained by productivity differences. In one study it traces the impact of Federal discrimination law on African Americans in South Carolina. It suggest that the black employment levels and wages rose suddenly after 1965, as entrepreneurs hired blacks after federal civil rights legislation was enacted. In general, employment and wage differentials improved dramatically from 1965-1975 and then appear to have stagnated.

In 1957, Gary Becker's pivotal book The Economics of Discrimination provided evidence of those employers who used "unfair bias" generated less income. Becker's work has been expanded by many analysts, including the black economist Thomas Sowell. He argues passionately that government's intervention "on behalf" of blacks has bitterly impoverished them. One of the most elegant aspects of the free market is that it tends to "correct" unwise economic policies.

These corrections can be hurried along by public censure, peer pressure, strikes, boycotts, and other non-violent strategies used by the '60s civil rights movement. The most powerful tool is education because changing a person's mind cures discrimination without creating a backlash. People properly resent a law that tells them who they must associate with and on what terms. This is precisely what should