Competitive Advantage and Disadvantage Between Minorities and Women in the Workforce

“It’s a small world. ” How many times do we hear this in our everyday life? The internet, mass media, telecommunications, and mass transportation have all contributed to the shrinking of the international market. As companies become more and more diverse, it’s becoming more and more important for the employees to understand and manage it. For my research paper, I’ve decided to find out the competitive advantage and disadvantage between minorities and women in the workplace.

Diversity in the workplace is a topic that many industries and organizations spend an abundant amount of time and training on in order to ensure its presence. Today’s workplace is more diverse than it has ever been in the history of America. 1 out of 4 Americans belong to a minority or is foreign-born. Women are making up less than half of the work force. Whether you are a business owner, executives, salesperson, or customers, your success will increasingly depend on your ability to function in a culturally diverse marketplace. Women, people of color, and immigrants will soon hold almost ? of all jobs in this country.

In order to effectively manage diversity and recognize it as a source of strength instead of conflict, we will need to be educated and reprogrammed to accept and embrace diversity. In the world today, it is a face that a lot of people believe that racism is no longer exists. Little do they know, as of 2010, the National Organization of Women believes that the U. S. still needs an affirmative action plan. African American women earned 63 cents to a dollar for the jobs that men do, and Hipic women earn 57 cents to the dollar and Blacks have twice the unemployment rates of whites.

Minority and immigrant groups are often disadvantaged in gaining access to jobs for which they are educationally qualified and earn less than their white counterparts. Descriptive results showed greater overall underemployment among females than males. Blacks and Hipics had higher unemployment and working poverty rates compared to non-Hipic whites and Asians, with job mismatch highest among Asians. Immigrant underemployment was greater than that of the native-born Americans. Asians posted the largest disparity in immigrant versus native-born underemployment, and blacks had the smallest.

The double disadvantage hypothesis of minority group and immigrant status is accepted only for Asian men and women with jobs mismatched to their skills and for Asian women, who are most likely to be unemployed or be among the working poor. Asian immigrants’ women have the characteristics to stay at home, cleaning house, shy, and less aggressive, which transform to have less attached to the workforce. Researchers have shown great interest in the study of gender and race effects on promotions outcomes.

The evidence suggests that women are disadvantaged such that they are less likely to be promoted than their equal qualified male counterparts. Lacks of advancement opportunities is major contributors to voluntary quit decisions by employees that fitted the job well and contribute to the company they belong. Employment decisions should be based on skills and ability, allowing all employees to put their talents to good use and work together to get the best possible outcome. America is not the only place in the world that’s facing the challenge of workplace discrimination.

Within the UK, construction has an unenviable status as being the industry with the lowest representation of women and ethnic minority employees. The construction workplace presents a challenging and hostile environment for non-traditional workers, and women and ethnic minority employees face both similar and different challenges and attitudinal barriers. Discriminatory behavior perform by the dominant white male workforce is unbearable, as are informal recruitment practices, exclusive networks and a competitive culture. As the turn of the new millennium, the proportion of minority members living n poverty, attending poorly funded schools, or experiencing other forms of disadvantage far exceed the proportion of whites under these conditions. It was found that the minority residents of communities with large minority populations were in worse socioeconomic conditions than the minority residents of predominately white communities. Furthermore it was found that as minority concentration increased, white residents tended to do better. In addition, the extent of racial inequality between minority and white residents was greater in communities with larger minority populations.

The improvement of education and training to minority residents of racially concentrated communities will be very beneficial, not only to the people itself, also think of it as a better country as a whole. There is little question that the improvement of educational levels and employment skills of minority residents communities will pay dividends in the near future. The growing markets of Latin America, Asia, and Central and Eastern Europe are now playing an ever more important role in global buying, selling and manufacturing.

Diversity within a company can help the firm better understand the culture, customs, and the way of doing business internationally. Customers also prefer to do business with a workforce that which they can identify, and that have a strong commitment to their community. There are many advantages to having a work environment that is diverse. A company that is prepared for changes in demographics is prepared for the market changes as well as the changes in the pool of applicants. Having a diverse workplace creates an increase in attracting and retaining the most qualified candidates.

Diversity programs within corporations improve corporate culture, help in recruitment, and help to maintain better client relations. In conclusion diversity in workforce is growing in all countries, specially America, Canada, and Europe. With having more diverse work environment, organization can produce better performance. It is important for the companies to know diversity and how to handle the issues relating to it. Also the need of the diverse workforce is getting more not only because there are different people but also because they can produce better results with having different types of people working.

Leaders in the organizations must learn diversity and how to manage it effectively. One of the reasons, aside that my family is back in Hong Kong, that I will end up going back to Hong Kong as soon as I graduate college is because as much as I don’t want to say it, I can feel discrimination everyday in my life. As little as just playing basketball on a nice day, someone around you will always have the stereotype about how you look and what to expect. We can arguably say that America is the “melting pot” of the world, but racism, in my book, will never escape in the use of our everyday life.