Explaining Labour Marker Inequality and Discrimination - Essay Example

Social institutions, forces, and traditions that discriminate against race and gender influence the labour market. This essay is an attempt to identify the theory that best explains the embeddedness of discrimination and inequalities in employment. This essay also discusses the limits to law, equal opportunities policies and collective bargaining as remedies to labour inequality and discrimination. Labour discrimination implies that, other things being equal, members of a minority group, women, and even disabled people do not enjoy the same privileges and opportunities in the labour market as do Whites and men.

Discrimination and inequality in the labour market may be classified into three, namely, (1) occupational segregation, (2) employment inequality, and (3) wage inequality (Ackerman 2000, xxxvi). Even though people of colour and women both endure labour discrimination, the shape it assumes for each group is not the same. Studies on discrimination in the labour market have reported that the recognisable features of race and gender are the determinant of occupation and pay (Whalen 1996). According to Edwards (1985), discrimination against people of colour and women in the labour market is reinforced and renewed through the forming of wage differentials.

Hence, to maintain a pool of low-wage labour, a number of employees are methodically segregated, on the basis of their racial affinity or gender, from high-wage sectors of the labour market. A Theory of Labour Market Discrimination and Inequality Theories that are strongly established and commonly recognised in labour research have five attributes in common, according to Solimano (1998). First, as regards to their analytical feature, they are neatly clear-cut and basic assumptions vulnerable to mainstream ideas and sentiments.

Second, correctly interpreted these basic assumptions possess extensive uses producing practically valuable predictions or a semblance of truth that is vividly interesting. Third, they address issues of social policy. Fourth, established theories usually communicate several basic ideological predispositions that have a substantial tradition (Solimano 1998). Ultimately, remarkable theories hold research programmes that encourage scholars to focus on some aspects and not on others for better knowledge of major concerns.

Theories of labour market segmentation have an institutional and historical inclination, arguing that “jobs cluster in segments that differ systematically by the skill and training involved, job security and attachment, opportunities for advancement, breadth of job definition, level of worker participation in decisions, and compensation” (Whalen 1996, 200). Most existing knowledge about these subject matters originates from historians and sociologists. The theory of segmented labour market is generally related to a leftist or Marxist analysis (Solimano 1998).

In order to prove that the theory of segmented labour market is the best theory that explains the embeddedness of discrimination and equality in the labour market, it is important to restate an aspect of the core issue in this arena. According to Kirton and Greene (2010), substitutes to the neo-classical theory of labour market emerged in order to clarify actual phenomena not likely to be understood through traditional theory. These real phenomena are associated with unemployment, poverty, and