Chapter Learning Objectives

  • Appreciate why it is very difficult to quantify the role that discrimination plays in explaining the huge gender, racial, and ethnic disparities that are observed in the United States.
  • Understand the principles underlying a procedure called the Oaxaca transformation that is often used to measure earnings discrimination.
  • Recognize the problems caused by the statistical headache known as self-selection bias.
  • Know how economists measure occupational segregation.
  • Recognize the broad trends in the economic experiences of both Black workers and women and the attempts to measure the part discrimination plays in explaining them.
  • Understand the main policies that have been crafted to stamp out discrimination in the workplace.