PubPol 750.053 Topics: Gender, Race, and Employment Policy

More than 50 years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act, significant gender and ethno-racial inequality in the labor market remains. Why? This course relies on a multidisciplinary literature from sociology, economics, psychology, and socio-legal studies to examine ethno-racial and gender inequality in the labor market. We will first review and evaluate major explanations of inequality in the labor market, including employer discrimination, human capital differences, sexual harassment, occupational sex segregation, mass incarceration, inflexible workplaces, and segregated social networks. Then, we will discuss public policies and organizational efforts that seek to directly or indirectly ameliorate ethno-racial and/or gender inequality, such as paid family leave, "ban the box," unconscious bias and sexual harassment trainings, and increases to the minimum wage.

Faculty Expert

Fabiana Silva

Assistant Professor of Public Policy

Silva studies the mechanisms that perpetuate (or mitigate) group-based labor market inequality, with a focus on social networks and employer discrimination. She examines how employers reward the referrals of black and white job applicants, the relationship between employers' racial attitudes and their hiring behavior, and the determinants of how people are racially classified by others. She also investigates how different ways of framing immigration affect attitudes towards immigration policy.