Affirmative Action and Workforce Research Assignment (Essay Sample)

Affirmative Action and Workforce
Name
Institution
Affirmative Action and Workforce
Affirmative Action refers to the Civil Rights Movement enacted in 1960 to offer equal prospects to women, disabled and the minority groups in both employment and education. Primarily, its emphasis was more on the opportunity such that it would create programs to break down both visible and invisible barriers and level the playing field for everyone to access equal break. Although this action was not specifically meant to Action and guarantee equal results; women, African Americans and individuals with disabilities would be represented in the nation’s workforce. Therefore, this essay seeks to answer the question as to whether Affirmative Action has consistently and effectively generated a more productive and robust workforce.
In the last forty years, Affirmative Action has made a significant progress in the past generation. The majority of women and minorities have had greater access to opportunities in the business world although the plan needs to progress such actions such that each will have an equal shot at fair compensation and higher-level jobs. Additionally, the Supreme Court backed up the plan pointing out that the majority of skills and expertise needed in the global marketplace can only be achieved through exposure to widely diverse culture, ideas, and people. Affirmative Action has also expanded the talent pool where business have grown and developed in the past years. Most companies have acknowledged that diverse workforce encompassing both women and minorities has led to heightened productivity and performance. For example , the Bipartisan Glass Ceiling Commission pointed out that organizations that were dedicated to promoting and hiring the less advantaged in the society have had higher annualized returns compared to those with intact glass ceilings (Harris, 2009). Apart from this progress, the organization has also been rewarded with the expansion of innovative ideas and markets. For this reason, a majority of executive companies have supported the use of Affirmative Action programs for the good of their businesses. Despite this progress, much needs to be done because a number of drastic inequalities still exist in salary and hiring practices. For instance, on average, a college educated African-American woman will earn an annual salary of $19,054 less compared to a college educated white woman (Bunchflower, 2009). On the same note, woman with a master’s degree tends to make $4,765 less compared to a man with a master's degree.
Subsequently, Affirmative Action has enacted laws that have encouraged contractors and government agencies to perform business with some of the women-owned companies and provide financial, technical and management assistance to women business owners. According to one of the government studies, women have made a greater gain in employment companies connected with the federal government. Resultantly, female employment rose up to 15.2% at federal contractors (Bunchflower, 2009). On the same note, the research indicated that state outworkers had hired more females in better paying jobs and higher levels compared to other firms. Next, majority of individual companies have avowed that Affirmative Action plan has had a tremendous effect on women in the workforce. For instance, after International Business Machine (IBM) set up one of the Affirmative Action strategy, the number of female managers and officials seem to have augmented within a span of ten years. Similarly, communal pledge of minorities and woman aided Corning and Motorola to represent people of color in the upper-level management and double the number of their black and female employees. Women-owned trades and organizations have also benefited greatly from the plan because from 1987, their businesses have amplified to over 100%. Presently, there are almost nine million businesses owned by females that have employed more than twenty-seven million workers (Harris, 2009).
Even though the majority of women and minorities have continued to support Affirmative Action in the past forty years, a growing number of them admit that the benefits may not be worth. They have the perception that their success in the workforce seem to be unearned. Overall, women and minorities continue to hold some of the vastly lower-paying jobs and are actively d...