Racial Inequality In The Workplace

“Inequality at work is the existence of unequal opportunities and any form of bias or discrimination that takes place in a work environment. It is allowed and promoted by the workplace authority.” (Acker, 2006) Inequality will bring drawbacks to the workplaces such as lower the productivity and inferior performances of the workers, this will result in negative outcomes of the whole business. There are several forms of inequality at work: gender, social class and race (Undurraga, 2014). In the workplace, a hierarchy is usually existed (Hyman, 1979). Employees who have a higher position such as managers are paid higher salaries and have more prestige and authority than the employees who have a lower position (Cowherd, 1992). “ Management means

the organization and coordination of the activities of a business in order to achieve defined objectives.” (WebFinance, 2014) This essay is going to discuss different types of inequality at work and examine whether an effective management can eliminate inequality or no. First, it will outline and give examples of those three dimensions of inequality at work. Then, it will define what is a good management. Finally, it will evaluate does an effective management eliminate inequality at work.
There are three common dimensions of inequality from the above. For the gender inequality, it “refers to unequal treatment or perceptions of individuals based on their gender.” (Swim, 2014) Take UK’s workforce as an example; there is a moral case that the government and employers accept the gender parity; this is also a powerful business case (Saunders, 2013). However, the problem of gender inequality at work still here. “There is gender pay inequality, in 2012, the gender pay difference decreased to 19.7% from 20.2% in 2011. This was a narrowing of around 8%, while it was 27.5% in 1997” (ONS, 2013). There is a glass ceiling effect that limits women’s performance, and builds up a barrier for them to seek jobs, hence this will lower their success’s chances (Hultin, 2003).
A sociologist, Walby explained the gender inequalities in employment by focusing on the patriarchal structure (Walby, 1986). There is a rule for female in order to protect their rights at work, however, Walby found that they still participate less and get a lower pay than males (Walby, 1986). Furthermore, she believes that one of the significant factors are unions and they produce the downside of female employment, and argues that unions are men-dominated as a patriarchal institution. “In 2001, there are only 9.9% female directors in UK companies and there are 12% female CEOs in Austria” (Haralambos, 2004).
For the social class inequality, it is “ the existence of unequal opportunities and rewards for different social positions or statuses within a group or society.” (Berkowitz, 1966) Different people have different talents and abilities. Additionally, Davis and Moore, these two functionalists argue that those people who are from the lower strata will never have the same opportunities for performing their skills, while those people from higher strata can (Haralambos, 2004). “Inequalities reflect differences in talent and the different values that society places on certain roles” (Walby, 1986).
For the social maintenance and survival of people, there are different positions. For example, in Hong Kong, numerous people are interested in being a teacher and targeted it as a goal, but it is not that popular in the UK recently. Social class can be linked with stratification. “Stratification describes the way in which different groups of people place within society. The status of people is often determined by how society is stratified.” (Abbott, 2010) “Meritocratic values are powerful and widespread.”(Parkin,1971)
There is a term “Meritocracy”, which is a value in stratification. It means that in modern societies, talents are distributed everywhere unequally. It is normal that the most significant positions are occupied by the most talented. For example, critical sociologists point to the class, gender and racial inequalities in workplaces. In functionalism, “it stratified people by their abilities and the ascribed status encourage people to be hardworking in order to achieve rewards.” (Haralambos, 2004) “Positioning in a stratification order comes from a variety of factors, including the age, gender, ethnicity, income and other resources.” (Swim, 2014) By classifying the status and class, inequality emerges mostly.
The third one is racial inequality.

“Racial inequality is a disparity in opportunity and treatment that occurs as a result of someone's race.” (Berkowitz, 1966) There are several surveys asked about the discrimination’s experiences at work of African Americans and other racial minorities. For example, “One of the survey found that more than one-third of blacks and nearly 20% of Hispanics and Asians reported that they had personally been passed over for a job or promotion because of their race or ethnicity.”(Schiller, 2004) Furthermore, in the social hierarchy, the frequency of racial discrimination does not eliminate: middle-class blacks are also seen as working-class (Feagin& Sikes, 1994). For the job types, racial minorities usually focus on those jobs with lower levels of authority and stability and fewer chances for their advanced studies (Parcel& Mueller, 1983). Likewise, there are factors such as social networks and motivation that produce racial inequality at work (Acker, 2006). For the wage difference, there is research that found that “whites were offered wages that were on average 15 cents/hour higher than their equally qualified black test partners.” (Acker, 2006) Racial inequality will bring disadvantages to the labour market as it will diminish the effort and performance (Ogbu,

1991).
Inequality exists everywhere in the workplace. It is a controversial issue whether good management can eliminate inequality or not. Solving problems, achieve goals and motivating employees are included in effective management (Gupta, 1996). The five functions are organizing, controlling, planning and staffing, they divide the management process into several parts such as marketing, accounting and finance (Slack, 2009).
Besides, having a good management style could only diminish some types of inequality at work but not eliminate. There are several ways that can take part in the management at work to diminish gender inequality. Tackling bias in recruitment, giving equality of chances for females in the business and recruiting more women in management are the methods (Acker, 2006). The main barrier to women is the recruitment, this is usually affected by the bias. The bias shape those behaviours of women involve roles, characteristics and abilities of both genders. There are two effective methods to tackle this in order to avoid bias. The first one is to set targets for women’s recruitment and set up rules for raising the awareness of gender diversity (Acker, 2006).
Secondly, having equality of opportunity for women is essential to reduce gender inequality in the workplace (Saunders, 2013). For instance, they should be given an equal pay audit and flexible working hours. Employees should be recruited according to their abilities, characteristics and educational level instead of the gender role (Saunders, 2013).
Thirdly, from the above, women should be given equality of opportunity such as recruiting more of them in the management. Reviewing the selection criteria, this can prove there is the core competencies and show the transparency to all workers to reduce the chances of inequality (Slack, 2009). Developing a specific strategy in the management progress, in the aim of increasing the proportion of females in the organisations (Slack, 2009).
However, having a good management might not be able to diminish social inequality. Since the social class is already existed, it cannot be changed by any method. The main role of management is to narrow the gap and stereotypes in the workplace (Gupta, 1996). This can be resulted from how the employers treat their employees, either equally or differently, but not about the social class.
In some conditions, the inequality at work can be a motivation instead of a disadvantage. The employees could see it as a competition in order to motivate themselves. “Managers and leaders must expand their understanding of diversity to include a variety of other dimensions such as those described above: personality traits, internal and external qualities, and formal and informal organizational roles” (Acker, 2006).
To conclude, it is hard to eliminate the problem of inequality at work immediately by having a good management. However, this can help to diminish some of them step by step, gradually. The inequalities at work involve gender, race and social class. Women in the workplace usually have a lower pay and there is the glass ceiling that hinder the achievements of them particularly. Besides, there is also bullying between different ethnic groups at work. At most of the time, the discriminated have no choice to select their living places and so why they are being associated to stereotypes. People believe that an effective management are trying to eliminate the inequalities at work in the aim of performing equal chances and fairness to motivate the employees. From another viewpoint that mentioned above, inequalities in workplaces may be motivations for employees, they may achieve better goals and have a higher productivity.