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A Cure for Discrimination? Affirmative Action and the Case of California's Proposition 209

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Author Info
Caitlin Knowles Myers

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Abstract

An important claim made for affirmative action programs has been that they need not be permanent: they can be discontinued, the argument runs, once they have transformed employers' attitudes. Proposition 209, enacted in California in 1996 and made effective the following year, represents a natural experiment testing that claim. It ended long-standing state affirmative action programs not only in education, but also in public employment and government contracting. The author uses Current Population Survey data to gauge the labor market effects of this dramatic policy change. The key finding is that employment among women and minorities dropped sharply, almost wholly because of a decline in labor force participation rather than an increase in unemployment. This finding, the author argues, suggests that affirmative action programs in California either had been inefficient-that is, resulted in sub-optimal employee-employer matches-or had failed to create lasting change in employers' prejudicial attitudes.

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Publisher Info
Article provided by ILR Review, ILR School, Cornell University in its journal ILR Review.

Volume (Year): 60 (2007)
Issue (Month): 3 (April)
Pages: 379-396
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Handle: RePEc:ilr:articl:v:60:y:2007:i:3:p:379-396

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Smith, James P & Welch, Finis, 1984. "Affirmative Action and Labor Markets," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 2(2), pages 269-301, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Mincer, Jacob, 1976. "Unemployment Effects of Minimum Wages," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 84(4), pages S87-104, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Susan Athey, 1998. "Mentoring and Diversity," Working papers 98-2, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Department of Economics.
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  4. Coate, Stephen & Loury, Glenn C, 1993. "Will Affirmative-Action Policies Eliminate Negative Stereotypes?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(5), pages 1220-40, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. Morris Goldstein & Robert S. Smith, 1976. "The estimated impact of the antidiscrimination program aimed at federal contractors," Industrial and Labor Relations Review, ILR Review, ILR School, Cornell University, vol. 29(4), pages 523-543, July.
  6. Ai, Chunrong & Norton, Edward C., 2003. "Interaction terms in logit and probit models," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 80(1), pages 123-129, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Orley Ashenfelter & James J. Heckman, 1974. "Measuring the Effect of an Anti-Discrimination Program," NBER Working Papers 0050, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  8. Gruber, Jonathan, 1994. "The Incidence of Mandated Maternity Benefits," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(3), pages 622-41, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. H. Holzer & D. Neumark, . "Are affirmative action hires less qualified? Evidence from employer-employee data on new hires," Institute for Research on Poverty Discussion Papers 1113-96, University of Wisconsin Institute for Research on Poverty. [Downloadable!]
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Hélène Perivier, 2007. "Les femmes sur le marché du travail aux États-Unis - Une mise en perspective avec la France et la Suède," Documents de Travail de l'OFCE 2007-07, Observatoire Francais des Conjonctures Economiques (OFCE). [Downloadable!]
  2. Peter J. Sloane & Suzanne Grazier & Richard J. Jones, 2005. "Preferences, Gender Segregation and Affirmative Action," IZA Discussion Papers 1881, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
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