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181. Discrimination, Social Identity, and Coordination: An Experiment

Author:
Vessela Daskalova
Publication Date:
04-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)
Abstract:
This paper presents an experiment investigating the effect of social identity on hiring decisions. The question is whether people discriminate between own and other group candidate This paper presents an experiment investigating the effect of social identity on hiring decisions. The question is whether people discriminate between own and other group candidates. Key features of the experiment are: First, to consider whether they do so in individual, as well as in joint decisions; Second, to document whether the identity of the co‐decision maker matters in joint decisions. Substantial discrimination occurs in both individual and joint decision‐making situations. In joint decisions, decision makers discriminate when deciding with someone from their own group, but not when deciding with someone from the other group.
Topic:
Economics, Race, Employment, Inequality, Discrimination, Job Creation, Social Order, and Identity
Political Geography:
Global Focus

182. 'Roma' Policy Making: Key Challenges and Possible Solutions

Author:
Zora Popova
Publication Date:
01-2015
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
European Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI)
Abstract:
Acknowledging the need for an integrated and targeted approach towards the inclusion of the largest European minority, the EU has moved forward over the past decade in its efforts to develop and launch policies and programmes aiming at bringing about a positive change to the situation of Roma. Despite the significant funds allocated for the implementation of initiatives and strategies, no significant impact has been accounted throughout Europe over the years. The current policy brief looks at some factors that appear to be key impediments to the development of a sustainable and successful policy and suggests steps for overcoming the identified problems.
Topic:
Minorities, Ethnicity, Discrimination, Conflict, and Identity
Political Geography:
Europe

183. Instigations of Separatism in the Baltic States

Author:
Mindaugas Kuklys and Raul Carstocea
Publication Date:
06-2015
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
European Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI)
Abstract:
This Issue Brief deals with some recent attempts to instigate and foment separatism in certain regions of all three Baltic states – Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Although these attempts would appear at first glance to be spontaneous, we argue that certain recurring elements and links between them seem to indicate that they are rather coordinated actions showing a certain level of organization. In turn, these recent cases have direct bearing on the relationship between minorities and majorities in the Baltic states after the Russian annexation of Crimea and the increasingly strong promotion of the Eurasian Union initiated by Russia. Despite the differences between Estonia and Latvia on the one hand – which have large Russian-speaking minorities continuing to face integration challenges – and Lithuania – with a relatively small and well-integrated Russian minority –, these recent calls for separatism are manifest in all three countries under consideration.
Topic:
Minorities, Ethnicity, Discrimination, Separatism, and Identity
Political Geography:
Europe and Baltic States

184. Minority Women’s Hard Choices when Seeking Redress for Multiple Discrimination

Author:
Tove H. Malloy
Publication Date:
10-2015
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
European Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI)
Abstract:
Minority women face several dilemmas when they seek redress for multiple discrimination through international human rights instruments. Although human rights instruments are universal in nature, they address either specific issues or they target specific categories of beneficiaries. A minority woman suffering multiple discrimination cannot, therefore, claim her rights in one place but must direct her petition to several instruments. Since this is rarely feasible, minority women may have to make the very hard choice between seeking redress as women, or as members of a minority, or as individuals experiencing specific discrimination. This is no small matter as minority women often suffer discrimination on multiple accounts as members of both social and cultural groups. This Issue Brief explores the legal obstacles that minority women encounter because of their complex human condition.
Topic:
Gender Issues, Minorities, Ethnicity, Discrimination, and Identity
Political Geography:
Global Focus

185. Protection for Whom? Violations of International Law in Myanmar's New 'Race and Religion Protection' Laws

Author:
Chloé White
Publication Date:
01-2015
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security (GIWPS)
Abstract:
In recent years, Myanmar has undergone a significant political transformation. In 2011, after nearly sixty years of iron-fisted rule, the governing military junta transferred power to a quasicivilian government.1 The new government has undertaken various political and economic reforms2 and has become a signatory to and ratified several international treaties.3 In response, the United States, the European Union and others have opened up relations with the country and eased sanctions.4 Despite these advances, however, Myanmar has several obstacles to overcome before it can be considered a pluralistic, functioning democracy. The analysis here focuses on two issues of concern: discrimination against minority ethnic and religious groups, particularly Muslims, and discrimination against women, and how the two have intertwined in dangerous new state policy. Myanmar president Thein Sein recently signed into law a set of four bills that exemplify the challenges facing the country. 5 These new laws are allegedly aimed at ‘preserving race and religion,’ but have a clear goal of discriminating against Muslims and other non-Buddhist groups by, in part, reinforcing traditional gender stereotypes. 6 The group of bills, first proposed in 2013 by the anti-Muslim Association for the Protection of Race and Religion (known as Ma Ba Tha) and supported by a petition supposedly signed by 1.3 million people,7 consists of legislation to outlaw polygamy and adultery, regulate religious conversions, restrict the marriage of Buddhist women to non-Buddhist men, and institute population control measures.8 While some of the provisions of these bills may seem innocuous, the timing of their passage, shortly before the November 2015 elections,9 and the surrounding rhetoric by ultra-nationalists belie any ostensibly benign motives. These initiatives could, both as passed and in practice, further exacerbate religious, ethnic and gender strife, violate both the Burmese constitution as well as international norms and obligations, and pose a particular threat to women’s health and empowerment.
Topic:
International Law, Politics, Women, Discrimination, and Rohingya
Political Geography:
Southeast Asia and Myanmar

186. 2014 and Beyond: Priorities for the European Union

Publication Date:
09-2014
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Open Society Foundations
Abstract:
The new leaders of the EU’s institutions face immediate and major challenges—from conflict in the EU’s surrounding region to rising xenophobia within its own borders—that have major implications for the future of Europe’s open societies. The European Parliament elections in May 2014 led to a turnover of half of the body’s members and the intake of many more xenophobic populist parties. The European Commission—the EU’s executive body—has a new president and College of Commissioners who will need to find new approaches to employment, inclusion, and development. The new European Council president will also have a tough job finding consensus among EU heads of state and government on issues ranging from relations with Russia to economic governance.
Topic:
Civil Society, Race, Minorities, Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Economic Cooperation
Political Geography:
Europe

187. Ethnic Origin and Disability Data Collection in Europe: Measuring Inequality—Combating Discrimination

Publication Date:
11-2014
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Open Society Foundations
Abstract:
The report Ethnic Origin and Disability Data Collection in Europe: Measuring Inequality—Combating Discrimination is published within the framework of the Equality Data Initiative, a project launched by the Open Society Foundations in collaboration with the Migration Policy Group and the European Network Against Racism to increase awareness within the European Union for the need to collect reliable data for groups at risk of discrimination. The report challenges the commonly held view in Europe that the collection of disability and ethnic data is categorically prohibited. It voices the necessity to involve the affected communities in the process of defining best practices and to respect binding core principles of data collection such as self-identification of the data subject and consent-based, voluntary, and anonymized data collection. The focus of the research is on Bulgaria, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Romania, and Sweden in the field of public education and on France in the field of public employment. Most of these EU member states collect data about their citizens in one or other way. However—as the report suggests—their methods lead to results that are either inaccurate or unreliable. The report makes recommendations for action at both the national and EU levels in order to achieve effective change in the field of equality data and to use data to promote equal treatment. Advocacy and strategic litigation are needed to steer national debates away from taboos, and question unlawful, harmful, or simply unsuitable data collection practices, and to call for the inclusion of disability and ethnic minority communities in the process. The European Commission and other EU institutions can provide guidance in this process by issuing recommendations and guidelines on equality data collection.
Topic:
Migration, Science and Technology, European Union, Citizenship, Discrimination, Disability, Data, Digital Policy, and Migrant Workers
Political Geography:
Europe

188. What next for Moldova's Minorities after Crimea?

Author:
Federica Prina
Publication Date:
07-2014
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
European Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI)
Abstract:
This Issue Brief examines the possible consequences of Russia's annexation of Crimea on Moldova and its national minorities. It further reflects on the factors that hinder greater integration of persons belonging to minorities, and the expression of minority identity in Moldova/Transnistria. The Issue Brief argues there are two indirect consequences of the annexation of Crimea by Russia. First, the annexation deepens the polarization between the pro-Russia and pro-EU camps in Moldova, which manifests itself in multiple ruptures within Moldovan society. Second, such a polarization furthers a tendency to marginalize (non-Russian) minorities, which implies a reduction of the spaces for the articulation of minority concerns and the expression of minority identity.
Topic:
Minorities, Ethnicity, Discrimination, Conflict, and Identity
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Ukraine, Moldova, and Crimea

189. What Happens to Wage Elasticities When We Strip Playometrics? Revisiting Married Women Labour Supply Model

Author:
Duo Qin, Sophie van Huellen, and Qing-Chao Wang
Publication Date:
12-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
School of Oriental and African Studies - University of London
Abstract:
This paper sheds new light on the well-known phenomenon of dwindling wage elasticities for married women in the US over the recent decades. Results of a novel model experiment approach via sample data ordering unveil considerable heterogeneity across different wage groups. Yet surprisingly constant wage elasticity estimates are revealed within certain wage groups over time as well as across two widely used US data sources, the Current Population Survey (CPS) and the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID). These findings refute the assumed presence of a single-valued aggregate wage elasticity for working wives. Although women’s responsiveness to wages remains largely unchanged over time, we find that the composition of working women into different wage groups has changed considerably, resulting in decreasing wage elasticity estimates at the aggregate level. All these findings were methodologically impossible to acquire had we not dismantled and discarded the stereotyped endogeneity-backed instrumental variable route, which hitherto blocked the way towards sample data ordering.
Topic:
Gender Issues, Labor Issues, Inequality, Discrimination, and Wage Growth
Political Geography:
Global Focus

190. Understanding the Issue of Gender Discrimination as a ‘Crime’ of Gender Apartheid and Placing Violence against Women at the Centre of this Matrix

Author:
Shazia Naureen Qureshi
Publication Date:
07-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
South Asian Studies
Institution:
Department of Political Science, University of the Punjab
Abstract:
This paper using the model of Racial Apartheid, once prevalent in South Africa, attempts to ask whether some of the severe forms of gender discrimination can be treated and termed as Gender Apartheid. It argues that class domination/segregation regime does not always have to follow the exact South African model in order to qualify for the crime of apartheid, the proof that discriminatory acts are severe, systematic and institutionalized are enough to establish the crime. The article notes that despite many commonalities between the two types of crimes, the degree of condemnation that practices of Racial Apartheid receive is far greater than the comparable acts of gender apartheid. It recommends that Apartheid, whether racial or gender, should be treated equally, and gender apartheid should accordingly be considered ‘crime against humanity’.
Topic:
Apartheid, Gender Issues, Race, Women, Discrimination, and Violence
Political Geography:
South Africa and Global Focus