Diversity in the Workplace

Abstract

Before any analysis of the diversity of a workgroup, its internal conflict, or its productivity, a fundamental understanding of race, class, and gender as well as systemic racism and chauvinism must be understood. Additionally, by viewing the issue of workplace diversity at a macro level, an understanding of socialization, education, health care, and the role of company community and diversity projects can be brought into the conversation of discussing the possibility of more diverse workplaces in the future. This article gives a longitudinal perspective of the issue of workplace diversity and highlights the role social research plays in challenging and shaping business practices related to workplace diversity.

Work & the Economy > Diversity in the Workplace

Overview

Diversity in the workplace has been a focus for human resource managers and public relations managers in large corporations, particularly in the United States. A link to a corporation's diversity program or mission statement can be found on virtually every Fortune 500 company website. Since the early 1990s, companies have positioned themselves in the marketplace as an employer championing workplace diversity and a partner supporting local diverse communities. This drive toward diversity has been spurred by dramatic shifts in manufacturing jobs away from advanced capitalist economies, a rise in service-sector jobs, company branding, investor relations, and in some cases a sincere business ethic. Despite the public narrative on diversity presented by companies, growing diversity, and even hiring trends favoring women in America's service-intense workforce (Green, 2003), the fact is that many of the problems related to diversity do not seem to be going away. White men tend to dominate high-status jobs and substantial pay gaps persist between men and women, White Americans and minorities, and upper and lower classes. Diverse teams in organizations routinely encounter communication obstacles, which can hinder productivity in some cases, but diversity in the workplace increases the development of new ideas that better reflect the diversity of a company's consumer base.

Many of the challenges of diversity remain beyond the reach of large companies. Historical systems of racism, chauvinism, and classism have lost favor with the rise of new cosmopolitan social graces. Yet these systems of historical bias remain intact and interconnect with networks of enculturation, education, health care, and economy, constructing a faceless systemic bias that constrains the rise of a highly-skilled, diverse workforce. The well-intentioned corporation may find that once it has addressed internal issues of hiring, training, and promotion bias that the diverse workforce they want to hire simply is not available, particularly in certain specialized fields.

To better understand many of the issues surrounding diversity in the workplace, it is necessary to be familiar with some of the basic concepts and dichotomies leveraged in the diversity debate. The primary categories utilized in research are race, class, and gender. These categories can be, and are often, extended. Other categories can include age, physical abilities (ableism), religion, sexual orientation, and gender identity. Within companies and labor markets, diversity is studied in proportional analysis of minority and majority group members and in integrative approaches that examine fault lines determined by reoccurring majority-minority splits across many categories (Kravitz, 2005). Thus, diversity can be measured separately at many levels in the workplace hierarchy, including the field, shop floor, project team, management team, and board room. Disparities in fairness can be studied through phenomena such as wage gaps, job segregation, marginalized work, and glass ceilings. Finally, workplace culture and its relationship to proportional representation, pay structure, and authority allow researchers to analyze the ability of certain types of workers to have a voice in the workplace. With these approaches, the sociologist is able to go beyond just measuring the count of majority and minority employees in a workplace. The sociologist can measure upward mobility, fairness in pay, status in like jobs, the effectiveness of teams, and cultural changes. Diversity is a social benefit only if it encompasses fairness in opportunity, rewards, and proportional representation.

Race and Ethnicity

Race is a social construct that identifies groups of people by certain shared characteristics. Often, these characteristics are phenotypic, that is, differences in the color of skin, facial features, and hair texture. Race as a category does not reflect actual genotypic differences (gene differences). For this reason, race may actually hide or obscure discrete ethnic groups with common historical origins (Marshall, 1998). This does not prevent sociologists from using race in their analysis of diversity. However, within modern sociology, race is not viewed as reflective of a genetically like group. Rather it is assumed to be a category shaped by larger social values.

Gender and Sex

In her 1972 book Sex, Gender, and Society, Ann Oakley defines the concept of gender to sociology. She defines sex as the biological differences between males and females, and gender as the parallel and unequal division between masculinity and femininity in society. Since Oakley's definition, the concept of gender has been extended to the division of labor in companies (Marshall, 1998). Sociologists use "gender" instead of "sex" because it is believed that differences in status and pay are attributable to socially constructed divisions (Smith, 1987). Gendering is socialization and one of the ways humans organize their lives. Researchers have utilized gender to explain job segregation, job marginalization, and the effect of proportionality and workplace culture.

Class

When sociologists work with the category of social class they are working with a slippery concept. Unlike race or gender, people are able to change class. Class refers to a group of people who share common economic positions and opportunities in an economy. Given the relatively similar economic status, they are afforded opportunities for education, health care, jobs, and other economic benefits. Generally speaking, there is an upper, middle, and lower class. Within each of these levels there can be additional subclasses. For example, in the upper class there can be the wealthy and the middle upper class. In the lower class there can be the working class, poor, and underclass. Where the economic line lies between classes in terms of wages is debated. What is not debated is that most people are unaware of their class. Despite what research data tells us, well over 90 percent of people consider themselves middle or working class (Heaton, 1987).

Sexual Orientation, Physical Ability, Age, and Religion

Other categories are often considered when looking at workplace diversity. Among these are sexual orientation, physical ability, age, and religion. Sexual orientation may be an attraction toward the opposite sex (heterosexuality), same-sex (homosexuality), both sexes (bisexuality), and neither (asexuality). Some sociologists believe sexuality to be genetic, while others label all types of sexual orientation as socially constructed. Physical ability is also a category to be considered in diversity. Traditionally, disabilities have been used to discriminate against certain types of workers. Impairment is a socially constructed concept that extends beyond the actual limitations of the individual. Ableism is a bias against people with disabilities. The four categories of sexual orientation, physical ability, age, and religion appear less often in corporate diversity mission statements.

The Workplace: Corporations, Nonprofits, and the Government

To understand the dynamics of workplace diversity it is necessary to understand the US workforce. Corporations and small businesses still provide the lion's share of jobs in the US economy. However, since the turn of the century nonprofits have employed approximately 10 percent of the workforce and growth in jobs in the Not-For-Profits sector have been outstripping those of corporate America. During the Great Recession (2007–2009), the private sector lost jobs at a rate of 3.7 percent per year, while jobs in the Not-For-Profits sector rose at a rate of 1.9 percent. The highest Not-For-Profits job category is health services; nonprofit entities, which accounted for 57 percent of the health services jobs in the United States (Salamon, Sokolowski, & Geller, 2012). This is an important issue when considering diversity in the workplace. Though Not-For-Profits organizations do tout their diversity programs, the truth is that many Not-For-Profits and most nonprofit hospitals have religious affiliations. These affiliations contribute to workplace cultures that constrain upward mobility for people who do not share religious affiliations or values with their employers.

The government is another fast-growing sector of the workforce. According to US Census data from 2011 and the 2010 American Community Survey, 15.3 percent of the civilian workforce works for federal, state, or local governments. Based on the 2011–2013 American Community Survey three-year estimates, this percentage dropped to 14.6 percent. The government as an employer is much more diverse than the corporations and Not-For-Profits. An example of this can be found in the construction industry. Construction upper-tier jobs (construction manager, estimators, and managers/supervisors of trades) in 2010 were comprised of only 4 percent African Americans, while 12 percent of city building inspectors, the individuals who inspect the work of construction management, were African American (US Department of Labor & US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2011). When considering diversity in the workplace, companies often find themselves between two strong growing sectors of the workforce with very different approaches to diversity.

Further Insights

Fairness and Diversity

It is not enough simply to have proportional representation in the workplace. A poultry business can claim to be diverse because a majority of its workforce is Latino, and half its workforce is female. But if all the managers and executives of the company are White men, then it would appear that the company is just taking advantage of inexpensive, unskilled labor concentrated in a local community. A hospital may claim to be diverse because of the international background of its physicians. However, if the cleaning staff is overwhelmingly African American women and the nurses and administrators are predominantly White, then it would not appear to provide a diverse workplace, despite the backgrounds of the resident physicians. A large law firm employing more female lawyers then male lawyers may claim to be diverse. Yet, if women attorneys at the firm only earn 82 percent of their male counterparts' wages (Miller, 2014), then the fairness of the firm's approach to diversity must be questioned. Job segregation, wage gaps, and job marginalization, not just personnel counts, tell the real story about diversity for sociologists.

Job Segregation

Job segregation exists when a category of jobs is filled primarily by workers of a certain type. Additionally, segregation exists when companies have a two-tiered system wherein jobs are divided up into levels that offer unequal pay, responsibility, security, training, and mobility (Doeringer & Piore, 1971). Job segregation makes it very difficult to show discrimination when the types of work women or minorities do is so different from the types of work White men do. American courts only recognize discrimination for doing the same work and usually only for doing it at the same company. Since the late 1960s this type of discrimination within job-cells has been largely a non-factor in the gender wage gap (Blau, 1977; Groshen, 1991; McNulty, 1967) because the courts are unable to address issues such as why computer programmers, a job more likely to be filled by a man, get paid much more than elementary school teachers, an occupation more likely to be filled by women. Some researchers believe that job segregation may be the largest remaining part of the gender wage gap (Groshen, 1991).

Wage Gaps

A wage gap is a term that signifies differences in pay for like work based on race and gender. The National Committee on Pay Equity reported that in 2013, women were earning an average of 78.3 percent of what men were earning ("Wage Gap over Time," 2014). Despite claims that since the late twentieth century the overall wage gap has closed between men and women, many argue that the wage gap has only improved for White women. Table 1, derived from the US Current Population Survey (2011), the National Committee on Pay Equity (2013), and the Bureau of Labor Statistics (2014), shows the change in wage gaps from 1975 and 2013 representing decades of improvement for White women. Today, the combination of being female and non-White appears to have a double penalty (Greenman, & Xie, 2008). African Americans and Latinos have lost ground to White women over the past decades. The wage gap between Latina women and White women is greater than the wage gap between White men and White women. The rise of service industries and the demise of manufacturing have benefited White women but not all women. Though a wage gap for like work does exist between men and women as well as White Americans and minorities in America, the primary reason for the overall wage gap lies in job segregation and job marginalization.

Re-Segregation and Job Marginalization

Rosabeth Moss Kantor's book Men and Women of the Corporation, published in 1977, presents the argument that a positive swing in the proportional representation of female employees can change the prestige and pay of a job and the culture of a workplace. Since that time researchers have shown how the proportional change in the number of women in a job cell or even occupation (that being a shift from a minority to a majority of workers in a group) can trigger what Skuratowicz and Hunter (2004) call re-segregation. Re-segregation occurs when a large number of women move into an occupation. Men may exit the occupation, prestige drops, wages drop, and the gender wage gap is perpetuated (Killingsworth, 1990; Reskin & Roos, 1990). The jobs become marginalized. The same is true of manufacturing jobs and food processing jobs that have seen White men replaced with women and minorities. Oddly, research shows that the White men who remain in the newly feminized occupation remain advantaged (Budig, 2002; Kantor, 1977) and are more likely to be promoted (Williams, 1992).

Glass Ceilings

Within the hierarchies of companies, a glass ceiling is a situation wherein an otherwise qualified candidate is denied the opportunity for advancement based on race, gender, or some other socially constructed characteristic. It is called a glass ceiling because the discrimination or bias that creates the barrier is not apparent. Glass ceilings traditionally refer to constraints placed on women but can also refer to limitations placed on homosexual employees (Frank, 2006) or other minorities (Lee, 2002; Sherman, 2002).

Glass Cliffs

In the twenty-first century, as more women entered the workplace at higher ranks, a phenomenon called the glass cliff began occurring. The glass cliff occurs when a woman is promoted to a higher position during a time of crisis, when the company is quietly on the verge of crisis, or during a recession, essentially setting the woman up for failure regardless of their efforts or capabilities. Companies which engage in this activity are able to claim the notoriety for promoting a female to a leadership role while offering their shareholders a scapegoat when the inevitable happens. The company is then able to appoint a male with no repercussions (Kagan, 2022).

Children, Leave, and the Double-Day

When addressing diversity at the highest levels of a company, researchers must take into consideration one of the more hotly debated issues: leave. When children arrive into the lives of workers, women are more likely to leave the workforce, if even for a brief period of time. Although the process of enculturation and the subsequent values and expectations play a primary role in deciding which parent will stay home with a child, research shows that company culture is also a significant factor. Men who work for large companies are less likely to take a paid leave to be with a newborn child. Additionally, employers may punish men, as measured by reduction in wages, more than women for taking leave (Spivey 2005). Thus, women take career breaks. When they return to work, they may pay the price in reduced wages, reduced responsibilities, and increased obstacles to upward mobility.

When women return to work, the effect of children on their role in the workplace is immense. They begin to work what Arai (2000) calls the double-day. The double-day includes two full-time jobs: a job at home and a job at work. Research has shown that having younger children increases the amount of housework for women while leaving the amount done by men largely unchanged (South, & Spitze, 1994). Additionally, women manage nearly all medical care—making the care decisions, appointments, taking the child to a physician, obtaining prescriptions, and caring for the sick child (Arai 2000, Blan 1993). The double-day leaves little time for obtaining a mentor, networking, professional development, and training (Goffee, & Scase 1983; Munch, McPherson, & Smith Lovin 1997; Noonan & Corcoran 2004; Stevenson 1986). To overcome this, many women exit the workforce to focus their energy on a single role. Research shows that many women change their employment status from work to mothering and then back to work at different stages in their lives. This allows them to fully commit to each endeavor. Women are likely penalized for time away from work because men do not experience similar types of changes (Hock, Gnezda, & McBride 1984, Poloma, 1972). Waldfogel (1997) estimated that for women, having children creates a 4 to 12 percent earnings penalty compared to women without children. Ironically, new fathers are sometimes viewed as more responsible and reliable and are advantaged in the labor market by having children (Noonan, & Corcoran 2004). The arrival of children often correlates at the same time to the acceleration of men's careers and deceleration of women's careers.

Viewpoints

According to population forecasts by the US Census Bureau in 2004, the percentage of White men in the American workforce between the ages of fifteen and forty-four was projected to drop from approximately 40 percent to 25 percent in 2054. In 2012 a report in the Monthly Labor Review used US Census Bureau data to project that from 2010 to 2050, people of Latino origin (of any race) will add 37.6 million people to the US workforce, comprising 80 percent of the total workforce growth (Toossi, 2012). According to the US Census Bureau in 2015, the millennial generation (born 1982–2000) comprised 83.1 million Americans and now outnumbers the baby boomer generation (born 1946–1964), which comprised 75.4 million Americans. The millennial generation is far more diverse than the baby boomers, who are rapidly aging out of the workforce; 44.2 percent of millennials are part of a minority race or ethnic group, and 50.2 percent of Americans under the age of five years in 2015 were part of a minority race or ethnic group. The core demographic currently filling high-status and high-paying jobs in America is shrinking. Companies who want to compete must diversify at the highest levels of the company in order to fill the void created by this huge shift.

Diversity Programs

Some companies are beginning to grapple with the systemic nature of racism and chauvinism. Going beyond just hiring practices, large companies are focusing on mentoring and training to retain diverse employees. Additionally, companies are looking at their local communities and customer bases. Companies located in diverse communities and selling their products to diverse consumers are beginning to resolve the ethical concerns of profiting from a diverse consumer base without doing anything to sustain the very communities from which they reap profits. Also, companies understand that based on pure demographics alone, future leadership in business will be more diverse. This means schools that primarily serve minority children must be improved. This also means that access to health care for these children must improve. Without these changes the future workplace these companies need to create may be out of their reach.

Education is often cited as the solution to diversity in the workplace. However, local school districts are primarily funded by real estate taxes. That means poor children living in real estate–depressed communities may only get one dollar of public school financing for every four to eight dollars in wealthy communities. This "savage inequality" (Kozol, 1992) ensures that these children will be far less likely to receive an adequate primary education and go on to college.

Healthcare is critical. Access to healthcare is a key to developing a diversified workforce that can fill jobs at every level of the diversified workplace. One of the biggest problems related to lack of access to healthcare has been low birth weight. Studies have shown low birth weight to contribute to problems with language comprehension, visual recognition, psychological and intellectual development, classroom behavior problems, and future increased risk of cardiovascular disease (Maher, 1999; Conley, 2001). Studies have also shown that lapse in access to healthcare correlates with long-term poor health and chronic conditions (Bednarek & Steinberg Schone, 2003; Sudano & Baker, 2003; Sudano, Baker & Albert, 2002). Lack of access to healthcare diminishes a future workforce's physical skills, social skills, education, and emotional well-being.

In looking at the websites of the top Fortune 500 companies, one only needs to click through a link titled "corporate responsibility," "community and society," or "company facts" to see the education and health care programs these companies are supporting as part of their diversity programs. At the center of these initiatives are education and health care programs for poor communities. Among the many questions sociologists will study around the issue of diversity in the workplace is the question of whether these programs are successful.

Diverse Teams and Workgroups

One of the primary areas sociologists concentrate on in the workplace is the performance of teams or work groups. This is essentially the study of the end results of socialization, education, hiring, and training. Teams operationalize the diversity dynamic and allow sociologists to measure conflict and productivity. Teams also allow for social researchers to identify other categories of diversity. These other categories may include functional background and personality. Research shows that diverse teams are more likely to encounter conflict and may be less productive than homogeneous teams. However, diverse teams are shown to be better at problem-solving and exploring new opportunities (Kravitz, 2005; Lepadatu, 2005). Research has shown that disclosure of background information (information that may reveal a like experience between two members otherwise perceived to be different) can enhance the function of the group and reduce conflict (Homan, van Knippenberg, van Kleef, & de Dreu, 2007). This type of information provided to business by social researchers can allow managers to develop within organizations communicative practices that accelerate workgroup productivity and mitigate conflict.

Conclusion

Sociologists will continue to study workplace diversity and its related issues from the cradle to the boardroom. Diversity in the workplace is a contentious issue. One only needs to look at the top companies in the Fortune 500 and consider their diversity programs in light of the multimillion-dollar lawsuits for discrimination brought against some of these companies. There is a dynamic interchange between business practices and social research that is ever-evolving and shaping our understanding of diversity in the workplace.

Terms and Concepts

Double day: Social research shows that when many women return to work after they have a child, they begin to work the equivalent of two full-time jobs: a job at home and a job at work. Women are primary caregivers and manage children's daycare, schooling, medical care, and other appointments. Research shows that after the birth of a child the amount of work done by men largely remains unchanged.

Gender: Gender is the parallel and unequal division between masculinity and femininity in society. Gender, unlike sex, is a socially constructed division and extends to family roles, social roles, and the division of labor.

Glass Ceiling: A situation in which an otherwise qualified candidate is denied the opportunity for advancement based on race, gender, or some other socially constructed characteristic.

Job Segregation: Job segregation is when a category of jobs is filled primarily by workers of a certain type. This includes tiered systems in which each tier, filled by a certain type of worker, offers unequal pay, responsibility, security, training, and mobility.

Race: A social construct that identifies groups of people by certain shared characteristics. More often than not these characteristics are phenotypic, that is, differences in color of skin, facial features, and hair texture. Race as a category does not reflect actual genotypic differences (gene differences).

Re-segregation: An occurrence where a large number of women or other minorities move into an occupation. White men began to exit the occupation, prestige drops, wages drop, and the wage gap is perpetuated.

Sexual Orientation: Sexual attraction to or affection for others. Sexual orientation may be toward the opposite sex (heterosexuality), same-sex (homosexuality), both sexes (bisexuality), and neither (asexuality). Some sociologists believe sexuality to be genetic while others label all types of sexual orientation, including heterosexuality, as socially constructed.

Wage Gap: A term that signifies differences in pay based on race and gender for like work.

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Salamon, L. M., Sokolowski, S. W., & Geller, S. L (2012). Holding the fort: Nonprofit employment during a decade of turmoil. Non Profit Employment Bulletin 39. Johns Hopkins University. Retrieved from ccss.jhu.edu/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2012/01/NED%5FNational%5F2012.pdf

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Skuratowicz, E. & Hunter, L.W. (2004). Where do women's jobs come from? Job segregation in an American bank. Work and Occupations, 31, 73–110. Retrieved from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX. search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=12216915&site=ehost-live

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Spivey, C. (2005). Time off at what price? The effects of career interruptions on earnings. Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 59, 119–140. Retrieved from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX. search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=18378908&site=ehost-live

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Suggested Reading

Adams, M., Blumenfeld, W.J., Castaneda, R., Hackman, H.W., Peters, M.L., & Zuniga, X. (Eds.) (2004). Readings for diversity and social justice: An anthology on racism, sexism, anti-semitism, heterosexism, classism, and ableism. Routledge.

Cañas, K. A., & Sondak, H. (2014). Opportunities and challenges of workplace diversity: Theory, cases, and exercises. Prentice Hall.

Cook, A., & Glass, C. (2011). Does diversity damage corporate value? Measuring stock price reactions to a diversity award. Ethnic & Racial Studies, 34, 2173–2191. Retrieved from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX with Full Text. search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=67457949&site=ehost-live

Guo, S., Cockburn-Wootten, C., & Munshi, D. (2014). Negotiating Diversity: Fostering Collaborative Interpretations of Case Studies. Business Communication Quarterly, 77, 169–182. Retrieved from EBSCO Online Database Business Source Complete. search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=97638805

Meyers, J. S. M, & Vallas, S. (2015). Inequality regimes and workplace diversity: A qualitative analysis. Conference Papers—American Sociological Association, 1–27. Retrieved from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX. search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=111786013&site=ehost-live&scope=site

Rothenberg, P.S. (Ed.) (2020). Race, class, and gender in the United States, 11th ed. Worth Publishers.

Stone, P. (2008). Opting out?: Why women really quit careers and head home. University of California Press.

Thomas, R.R. (2006). Building on the promise of diversity: How we can move to the next level in our workplaces, our communities, and our society. AMACON Books.