Introduction

Discrimination may be the result of prejudicial tastes (of employers, fellow workers, or consumers) or it may be ‘statistical discrimination’. The latter consists of assigning group characteristics to an individual. If others in the same group have proved to be less productive, then, it might be argued, it is rational for employers to avoid hiring (or promoting) workers from that group or to pay them less if they are hired. For many years such justifications sufficed and whole societies found it rational and acceptable to engage in racial or gender stereotyping. Today, many legal systems, including that of the United States, do not excuse statistical discrimination as somehow less objectionable. It is illegal. However, clearly both taste-based and statistical discrimination are still common in all societies, and statistical discrimination is much harder to eradicate.