Sociology

This essay focuses on the issue of ethnic discrimination manifested in the process of labor division, in todays society. This paper examines the differences between races that have influenced the division of labor. There are many factors that need to be taken into consideration, such as biological, social, historical and cultural factors, which provide the basis for ethnic stratification by affecting the degree to which people are able to acquire and control the sources of a society.
    I think this is a very topical subject of the present time, when the world is full of bipolar relations, such as rich countries and poor countries, men and women, black and white, employers and employees.
 Various forms of inequality are a topical subject of the present time and, also, an intrinsic part of society, even though, many people have been trying to abolish it over time. There are important debates regarding inequalities on labor market, but the racial and ethnic inequality has been a major focus of attention around the world.
    Each society has different norms and values that guide the human behavior and the cohesion of the people. This is called solidarity, which appears to people that have the same characteristics, such as religion, skin color, language and so on. These people learn to live with each other, they work, help and respect each other, they coexist. But what happens to those immigrants who couldnt make a living or who couldnt integrate in their native countries It is well-known the fact that skin color have a dramatic social and political meaning.The most common concept related to these differences is the term prejudice which means a negative attitude toward an entire category of people, often an ethnic or racial minority. These prejudices tend to perpetuate false definitions of a group and, once created, a prejudice is perpetuated through social influence that is present in the in-group and interpersonal interactions (one example is mass-media, which is an opinion maker). It is very hard not to have a stereotypical mind, because once accepted, these stereotypes linger on, decade after decade.
    Discrimination is, unfortunately, part of everyday life, even though many people have tried to abolish it over time. In their daily operations, institutions also practice discrimination. Sociologists are concerned about how a discriminatory behavior affects employment, health care, government operations and housing. The institutional discrimination, as defined by Schaefer, refers to the denial of opportunities and equal rights to all people, facts that are also highlighted by the Commission on Civil Rights. Labor market discrimination occurs when two equally qualified individuals are treated differently solely on the basis of their gender, race, age, disability, etc. For example, Blacks and Hispanics in the U.S. earn less than comparable whites and Arabs in Israel earn less than Jews with similar characteristics.
    Schaefers research about ethnic discrimination is also based on legally facts, brought into discussion in order to increase the veracity of the facts. He talks about the various forms of institutional discrimination identified by the Commission on Civil Rights (1981) and , among others, the followings are relevant for this topic rules requiring that only English be spoken at a place of work, even when it is not a business necessity to restrict the use of other languages or preferences shown by law and medical schools in the admission of children of wealthy and influential alumni, nearly all of whom are White. 
    Several factors contribute to differences in earnings among different groups of people. Earnings are assumed to increase with education due to a resulting increase in worker productivity. Another means of increasing worker productivity is through on-the-job training. However, even when these factors are taken into account, at each worker category ethnic groups are still paid less than the majority group.
    An article wrote by Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Russell Hochschild entitled Global Woman shows the story of Josephine Perera, a nanny from Sri Lanka, who had to leave her children and home behind, in order to earn money by breeding other families children. This article is presented in a particular way, but like Josephine, are millions of other female workers that have chosen this path in life. She stresses on the fact that women workers are nannies, maids and sex workers in the new economy, in other words, they are seen like objects that take care of the children, clean and satisfy others sexual pleasures. (Third World migrant women achieve their success only by assuming the case-off domestic roles of middle and high-income women in the First World- roles that have been previously rejected, of course, by men.)
    Analyzing the ethnic pay gap, some scientists came up with a quantitative method of measuring the earnings differentials. This method was developed by Oaxaca (1973) and extended by Cotton (1988) and Neumark (1988). The specific form of the model employed here, follows closely that used by Gaynor and Durden (1995). The model incorporates four main types of variables human capital-related, job-related, personal, and regional. The empirical analysis is estimated for white males, white females, Hispanic males and Hispanic females.
The numbers show big pay gaps between white and Hispanic men, but especially at women. A summary of the data shows the following in 1990 Durden and Gaynor found that the earnings difference (in logarithmic values) between white and Hispanic males was about 1.1 and for Hispanic females about 22.2. Reimers found a 15 differential between white and Hispanic males and Pagan and Cardenas found a similar difference in logarithmic values. In dollar values, Torres found a residual of 3,808 for 1980 Puerto Rican-born Hispanic males and -310 for females for 1980 U.S.-born Hispanics the discrimination residuals were 1,590 for males and -641 for females. Verdugo found a larger difference in 1987 for Mexican-American workers of 2,098.Analyzing the four variables, the residual difference, which is the sum of advantage and disadvantage effects, may be attributable to discrimination.
When analyzing the race pay gap, it is important to take into consideration the period of time when the study was released. For example, today, when talking about pay differentials, we take into consideration the education and the skills, but, at the beginning of the century, going to college wasnt very popular. Not only because the salaries of college graduates were not too high in comparison to those of high school graduates, but a college graduate would lose four years of payment and specialization. Another important factor is the period of time that we refer to. Francis Fukuyama talks exactly about this issue in his book entitled The Great Disruption  Human Nature and the Reconstitution of Social Order(1999). Regarding to this matter he states that between 1960 and 1995, womens participation on labor market from Japan was higher than anywhere else in the world, but a reason might be the decrease of the number of men after the war in Pacific.
Most ethic groups gain less compared to the white groups, but, on the other hand, there are some minorities, like Jews, Chinese and Japanese who do as well or even better than the white majority. The earnings gap for most groups declined over the 1960s and the 1970s and the portion of that gap that might be assignable to discrimination also declined.
After World War II, immigration restrictions were relaxed in order to accommodate increased labor demands of a rapidly expanding economy. However, the 1953 Immigration Act continued to allow the government to bar entry for reasons such as ethnicity, nationality, and peculiar customs, habits, modes of life or methods of property. British, (white) Americans and, to a lesser degree, French immigrants were preferred.
An important moment in soften the rigidity of ethnic preferences was the industrialized period. The reason of the changes that emerged from the industrial period is reflected in Taylors principles of scientific management. He proposes the study of time and movement, the opportunity of choosing one best way in effectuating operations, a division of workresponsibilities. All these brought the resounding success of mass-producing (conveyor belt).The key word was efficiency, the work was divided and automated. Due to international competition and technology change, new jobs are created, which require qualification, and unqualified jobs disappear or are very poorly paid. Therefore, the return to education creates a gap between people that have different level of education. Therefore, the level of education might be an answer to the gap that exists between ethnic groups. However, there are, without any doubt, many employers who are still facing problems about accepting an employee who is part of a subculture.
Discriminatory practices are still a port of contemporary society, in every part of the world. Reasons are mostly the same, the differences of beliefs, color or region, but, in part, another reason is that various individuals or groups benefit from racial discrimination in terms of money, status or influence, on the expense of others.
Some theories, such as the neo-classical one, states that ethnic discrimination on the labor market is irrational, because, while employers underpay minority workers, they overpay the majority workers so much that it shows that employers lose from discrimination. The only ones who benefit from this chain are the employees from the super ordinate group. Also, a society that is leaded by discriminatory beliefs fails to use the resources of all individuals, they chose the service of certain people, that may be under qualified for a job, just because they are members of the dominant group. Another thing that is not taken into consideration when choosing to discriminate is risk of delinquency and crime, solutions that may be approached by the minorities in order to prevent starvation.
Even though there are written laws, norms, values and ethics cant be standardized. People are part of different cultures and what is a value for a society might be a non-value for another. What people can do is not letting stereotypes interfere on the labor market. To get rid of these stereotypes, it is important to assure interdependence between in-groups and out-group. If we see how dependent a person is of another persons help, even though one of them is part of an out-group, then they will see each other as an individual, as an ally and not as a whole. Also, interacting with someone from an out-group may get to a contradiction of the stereotype and one might notice that the stereotype was not well founded and not use it again.