Encyclopedia of Sociology Vol

Transemergency Period Behavior. Individuals and households. When disasters occur, individuals generally react very well. They are not paralyzed by a threat but actively seek relevant information and attempt to do what they can in the emergency. Victims while usually very frightened, not only act positively but also show little deviant behavior; they extremely seldom break in panic flight; they do not act irrationally especially from their perspective; and they very rarely engage in antisocial activities, although stories of such contrary behavior as looting may circulate very widely. Prosocial behavior especially comes to the fore, with the initial search and rescue being undertaken quickly and mostly by survivors in the immediate area. Most sudden needs, such as emergency housing, are met by kin and friends rather than official relief agencies. Family and household relationships are very important in affecting immediate reactions to disasters such as whether evacuation will occur or if warnings will be taken seriously, because mass media reports are filtered through primary ties.

Organizations. As a whole, organizations do not react as well to disasters as do individuals and households. But while there are many organizational problems in coping with the emergency time demands of a disaster, these difficulties are often not the expected ones. Often it is assumed that if there has been organizational disaster planning, there will be successful crisis or emergency management. But apart from the possibility of planning being poor in the first place, planning is not management and the former does not always translate well into the latter in community disasters. There typically are problems in intraand interorganizational information flow, and in communication between and to organizations and the general public. Groups initially often have to struggle with major gaps in knowledge about the impacts of a disaster. There can be organizational problems in the exercise of authority and decision making. These can stem from losses of higherechelon personnel because of overwork, conflict regarding authority over new disaster tasks, and clashes over organizational jurisdictional differences. Generally, there is much decentralization of organizational response which in most cases is highly functional. Organizations operating with a command and control model of response do not do well at emergency times. There often too are

problems associated with strained organizational relationships created by new disaster tasks and by the magnitude of a disaster impact.

Communities. Since disasters almost always cut across formal governmental boundaries, problems of coordination among different impacted political entities are all but inevitable. The greater the impact of a disaster, the more there will be the emergence of new and adaptive community structures and functions, especially emergent groups (that is, those without any preimpact existence).

The greater the disaster also, the more organized improvisations of all kinds appear accompanied by pluralistic decision making. In addition, the mass convergence of outside but nonimpacted personnel and resources on impacted communities, while functional in some ways, creates major coordination problems.

Societies. Few societies ignore major disasters, but this sometimes occurs especially in the case of slow and diffuse occasions such as droughts and famines, especially if they primarily affect subgroups not in the mainstream of a developing country. In responding to domestic disasters, typically massive help is provided to impacted areas. Increasingly, most societies, including governmental officials at all levels, obtain their view of what is happening in their disasters from mass media accounts (what has been called the ‘‘CNN syndrome’’); this also affects what is often remembered about the occasions. There is also a spreading belief, so far unsupported by research, that new technologies—especially computer-related ones—will allow major improvements in disaster planning and management.

Postimpact Behavior. Individuals and households. Overall, there is little personal learning as a result of undergoing a single disaster. While the experience of a major disaster is a memorable one from a social-psychological point of view, there are seldom lasting and widespread negative behavioral consequences. Disasters very seldom produce new psychoses or severe mental illnesses. They often, but not always, generate subclinical, shortlived and self-remitting surface reactions, such as loss of appetite, sleeplessness, and anxiety. More common are many problems in living that stem more from inefficient and ineffective relief and recovery efforts of helping organizations rather

than from the direct physical impacts of disasters.

However, not all postimpact effects are negative; sometimes, the experience of undergoing a disaster results in positive self-images and closer social ties among victims.

Organizations. Organizational changes, whether for planning for disasters or for other purposes in the postimpact period, is not common and selective at best. Most modifications are simply accelerations of noncrisis-related changes already planned or underway. Postimpact discussion of how to improve disaster planning seldom gets translated into concrete actions (unlike civil disturbances which in American society in the 1960s led to many changes in organizations). However, overall, both in the United States and elsewhere, there have been in recent decades the growth of small, locally based, formal social groups primarily concerned with emergency time disaster planning and management. Partly because of seemingly constantly escalating economic losses, certain businesses in such sectors as banking and insurance have increasingly become interested in disaster preparedness and recovery.

Communities. There are selective longer-run outcomes and changes in communities that have been impacted by disasters. There can be acceleration of some ongoing and functional community trends (e.g., in local governmental arrangements and power structures), and generation of some limited new patterns (e.g., in providing local men- tal-health services or some mitigation measures such as floodproofing regulations). On the other hand, particularly as the result of rehousing and rebuilding, there can be magnifications of preimpact community conflicts as well as the generation of new ones; some of the latter is manifested in blame assignation, which, however, tends to deflect attention away from social structural flaws to mass- media–influenced search for individual scapegoats. It is also being recognized after disasters that changes in technology that create diffuse networks and systems, such as among lifeline organizations, are increasingly creating the need for regional rather than just community-based disaster planning.

Societies. In developed societies, there are few long-run negative consequences of disaster losses whether of people or property, since such effects are absorbed by the larger system. In developing

societies and very small countries, this is not necessarily true; a catastrophic disaster may reduce the gross national product five to ten percent as well as producing tens of thousands of casualties. Nevertheless, changes or improvement in national disaster planning often does not occur except in certain cases such as after the Mexico City earthquake where an unusual set of circumstances existed, including a ‘‘political will’’ to do something. But increasingly, in the aftermath of major disasters, to the extent that planning is instituted or improved, it is being linked to developmental planning, a move strongly supported by international agencies such as the World Bank.

UNIVERSALITY OF GENERALIZATIONS FROM AN UNEVEN RESEARCH BASE

Cross-societal and comparative research increased markedly in the 1990s. Studies have ranged from cooperative work on local mass-media reporting of community disasters in Japan and the United States (Mikami, Hiroi, Quarantelli, and Wenger 1992) and flood responses and crisis management in four Western European countries (Rosenthal and Hart 1998), to comparisons of perceptions of recurrent floods in Bangladesh by European engineers and local residents (Schmuck-Widmann 1996), and cross-national analyses of post-disaster political unrest in a dozen countries (Olson and Drury 1997), as well as methodological issues involved in cross-societal research in Italy, Mexico, Turkey, Peru, the United States, and Yugoslavia (Bates and Peacock 1993). However, this kind of comparative empirical research so far has been limited. Furthermore, although the bulk of disasters occur in developing countries, the majority of studies from which the generalizations advanced have been derived, have been done in developed societies. Thus, the question of the universality of disaster behaviors in different social systems has increasingly been raised. Some universals appear to have been found: Prosocial rather than antisocial behavior clearly predominates in responses everywhere; household members and significant others are crucial in validating warning messages, and the larger kin system is vital in providing emergency assistance; emergent groups always appear at the height of the crisis period; organizations have relatively more difficulty in adjusting to and coping with disasters than do individuals and

small groups; the disaster recovery period is fraught with problems at the household, organization, and community levels; mitigation measures are given little priority even in disaster-prone localities; and social change is seldom an outcome of most disasters.

Generalizations of a more limited nature also seem to exist. There are social-system–structure- specific behaviors. For example, there often is a major delay in the response to catastrophic disasters from centralized, compared to decentralized, governmental systems. There also may be culturally specific differences. For example, reflecting cultural values, individual volunteers in disasters very rarely appear in some societies such as Japan whereas they are typical in almost all American disasters.

THE FUTURE

There is a dialectical process at work: There will be more and worse disasters at the same time that there will be more and better planning. Why more and worse disasters? Risks and threats to human beings and their societies are increasing. Traditional natural-disaster agents, such as earthquakes and floods, will simply have more to impact as the result of normal population growth and higher, denser concentration of inhabitants in risk-prone localities, such as floodplains or hurricane-vulner- able shorelines that otherwise are attractive for human occupancy. There is an escalating increase in certain kinds of technological accidents and mishaps in the chemical, nuclear, and hazardouswaste areas that were almost unknown before World War II. There are technological advances that create risks and complexities to old threats such as when fires are prevented in high-rise buildings by constructing them with highly toxic materials, or when the removal of hazardous substances from solid sewage waste generates products that contain dangerous viruses and gases. New versions of old threats are also appearing, such as the increasing probability of urban rather than rural droughts, or the potential large-scale collapse of the infrastructure of older metropolitan area lifeline systems. Finally, there is the continual development of newer kinds of risks ranging from the biological threats that are inherent in genetic engineering, to the crises that will be generated as the

world increasingly becomes dependent on computers that are bound to fail somewhere at some key point, with drastic consequences for social systems. In addition, the newer threats are frequently dangerous at places and times distant from their initial source or origin as dramatized by the Chernobyl nuclear radiation fallout in European countries and smog pollution episodes such as forest fires in Indonesia which had negative effects in many Southeast Asian countries.

On the other hand, there is increasing concern and attention being paid to disaster planning of all kind. The future augers well for more and better planning. Citizens almost everywhere are coming to expect that their governments will take steps to protect them against disasters; this is often actualized in planning for emergency preparedness and response. Whereas two decades ago a number of societies had no preimpact disaster planning of any kind, this is no longer the case. A symbolic manifestation of this trend was the proclamation by the United Nations of the 1990s as The Decade for Natural-Disaster Reduction. This international attention accelerated efforts to prevent, prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters. The effect was especially notable in the increased disaster planning in developed countries.

In developed societies, a focus on disaster planning and crisis management had started earlier, partly as a result of sociological and related research. By the 1980s, social scientists were increasingly influencing policies, political agenda settings, and operational matters regarding disasters. This can be seen in a variety of ways. Social scientists were represented on almost all national committees set up for the U. N. Decade, and contributed significantly to the reports prepared to mark the midpoint of the decade. The Board on Natural Disasters, established in 1992 in the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, always has had members from sociology and related disciplines. Sociologists have had major roles in national-disas- ter legislation in Greece and Italy. American social science disaster researchers typically testify before state and congressional committees considering disaster-related laws and policies. Many sociological disaster researchers provide both paid and unpaid consultant services to international, national, and local public and private groups involved in disaster-related activities. In places such

as the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and some European countries, the emergency-man- agement and disaster-planning community has become more open to recognizing the practical implications of social science research.

However, a caveat is in order for the generally correct view that studies by sociologists and others have increasingly influenced policy decisions and operational activities in the disaster area. Research results and questions are sometimes more than counterbalanced by other factors: These include the vested interests of powerful professional and bureaucratic elites to maintain traditional stances, resistance to seriously questioning the viabilities and competencies of specific organizations, and an unwillingness to face up to false assumptions of some cultural beliefs and values. Research to the contrary, for example, has had little effect on the fad-like spread of the ‘‘Incident Command System’’ as a model for the emergency time operations of organizations, or an ever-spreading acceptance that victims are likely to suffer posttraumatic stress disorders, or the current common belief that mitigation measures are necessarily a better strategy for disaster planning than giving priority to improving resilience and response to crises.

RELATIONSHIP TO SOCIOLOGY

Although not true everywhere, sociologists have been increasingly accepted as having an important contribution to make to disaster planning and management. In part this stems from the fact that in many countries such as Germany, Italy, Russia, and the United States, they have played the lead role among social scientists in undertaking disaster studies. While many reasons account for this, probably the crucial factor has been that much in general sociology can be used in doing research in the area.

There has been a close relationship between disaster studies and sociology from the earliest days of work in the area. In part this is because sociologists, being among the leading pioneers and researchers in the area, have tended to use what they could from their discipline. Thus, sociology has contributed to the research techniques used (e.g., field studies and open-ended interviewing), the research methodology utilized (e.g., the

‘‘grounded theory’’ approach and the employment of inductive analytical models), the theoretical ideas used (e.g., the notion of emergence from collective-behavior thinking and the idea of informal and formal structures of organizations), and the general perspectives employed (e.g., that there can be latent as well as dysfunctional aspects of any behavior and that societies and communities have a social history that is not easily set aside). In the volume entitled Sociology of Disasters: Contributions of Sociology to Disaster Research (Dynes, De Marchi, and Pelanda 1987), these and other contributions to disaster theory, disaster research methods, disaster models, and disaster concepts are set forth in considerable detail.

The relationship has not been one-sided, since disaster research has also contributed to sociology. The field of collective behavior has been most influenced and this has been explicitly noted

(Wenger 1987). Other significant contributions include the study of formal organizations, social roles, social problems, organizational and social change, mass communications, medical sociology, and the urban community (see Drabek 1986; Dynes,

De Marchi, and Pelanda 1987; Dynes and Tierney

1994). A symposium on social structure and disaster, coattended by disaster researchers and prominent sociological theorists, examined how disaster studies not only are informed by but could also inform sociological theory; the proceedings were published in Social Structure and Disaster (Kreps 1989). It is also perhaps of interest that for several decades now, many introductory sociology textbooks have a section on disaster behavior, usually in the collective behavior chapter.

REFERENCES

Barton, Allan 1969 Communities in Disaster: A Sociological Analysis. Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor.

Bates, F., and W. Peacock 1993 Living Conditions, Disasters and Development: An Approach to Cross-Cultural Comparisons. Athens, Ga.: University of Georgia Press.

Cutter, Susan,ed. 1994 Environmental Risks and Hazards. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.

Drabek, Thomas 1986 Human System Responses to Disasters: An Inventory of Sociological Findings. New York: Springer Verlag.

Dynes, R. R.,ed. 1988 ‘‘Disaster Classics Special Issue.’’

International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters

6:209–395.

———, and K. Tierney, eds. 1994 Disasters, Collective Behavior, and Social Organization. Newark, Del.: University of Delaware Press.

Dynes, R. R., B. De Marchi, and C. Pelanda (eds.) 1987

Sociology of Disasters: Contributions of Sociology to Disaster Research. Milan: Franco Angeli.

Fritz, C. 1961 ‘‘Disasters.’’ In R. K. Merton and R. A. Nisbet, eds., Contemporary Social Problems. New York: Harcourt.

Kreps, G. 1984 ‘‘Sociological Inquiry and Disaster Research.’’ Annual Review of Sociology 10:309–330.

——— 1989 Social Structure and Disaster. Newark, Del.: University of Delaware Press.

Mikami, S., O. Hiroi, E. L. Quarantelli, and D. Wenger 1992 ‘‘A Cross-Cultural Comparative Study of Mass Communication in Disasters.’’ Bulletin of Faculty of Sociology. Toyo University 29:59–202.

Olson, Richard, and A. Cooper Druy 1997 ‘‘Un-Thera- peutic Communities: A Cross-National Analysis of Post-Disaster Political Unrest.’’ International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters 15:221–238.

Perrow, C. 1984 Normal Accidents: Living With High-Risk Technologies. New York: Basic Books.

Prince, S. 1920 Catastrophe and Social Change. New York: Columbia University Press.

Quarantelli, E. L. 1987 ‘‘Disaster Studies: An Analysis of the Social Historical Factors Affecting the Development of Research in the Area.’’ International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters 5:285–310.

———1993 ‘‘Community Crises: An Exploratory Comparison of the Characteristics and Consequences of Disasters and Riots.’’ Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management 1:67–78.

———1994 ‘‘Disaster Studies: The Consequences of the Historical Use of a Sociological Approach in the Development of Research.’’ International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters 12:25–49.

———,ed. 1998 What is a Disaster? Perspectives on the Question. London: Routledge.

———, and R. R. Dynes 1977 ‘‘Response to Social Crisis and Disaster.’’ Annual Review of Sociology 3:23–49.

Rosenthal, U., and P. Hart, eds. 1998 Flood Response and Crisis Management in Western Europe: A Comparative Analysis. New York: Springer Verlag.

Rosenthal, U., and A. Kouzmin 1993 ‘‘Globalizing an Agenda for Contingencies and Crisis Management.’’

Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management 1:1–12.

Schmuck-Widmann, Hanna 1996 Living with the Floods: Survival Strategies of Char-Dwellers in Bangladesh. Berlin: FDCL.

Schorr, J. 1987 ‘‘Some Contributions of German Katastrophensoziologie to the Sociology of Disaster.’’ International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters 5:115–135.

Short, James F. 1984 ‘‘The Social Fabric at Risk: Toward the Social Transformation of Risk Analysis.’’ American Sociological Review 49:711–725.

Sorokin, Pitirim 1942 Man and Society in Calamity. New

York: Dutton.

Wenger, Dennis 1987 ‘‘Collective Behavior and Disaster Research.’’ In R. R. Dynes, B. De Marchi, and C. Pelanda, eds., Sociology of Disasters: Contribution of Sociology to Disaster Research, 213–238. Milan: Franco Angeli.

E. L. QUARANTELLI

DISCRIMINATION

Discrimination, in its sociological meaning, involves highly complex social processes. The term derives from the Latin discriminatio, which means to perceive distinctions among phenomena or to be selective in one’s judgment. Cognitive psychology retains the first of these meanings, popular usage the second. Individual behavior that limits the opportunities of a particular group is encompassed in many sociological considerations of discrimination. But exclusively individualistic approaches are too narrow for robust sociological treatment. Instead, sociologists understand discrimination not as isolated individual acts, but as a complex system of social relations that produces intergroup inequities in social outcomes.

This definitional expansion transforms ‘‘discrimination’’ into a truly sociological concept. But in its breadth, the sociological definition leaves room for ambiguity and controversy. Obstacles to consensus on what constitutes discrimination stem from two sources—one empirical, the other ideological and political. First, deficiencies in analysis and evidence limit our ability to trace thoroughly the dynamic web of effects produced by discrimination. Second, because social discrimination is contrary to professed national values and law, a judgment that unequal outcomes reflect discrimination is a call for costly remedies. Variable willingness to bear those social costs contributes to dissension about the extent of discrimination.

The broadest sociological definitions of discrimination assume that racial minorities, women, and other historical target groups have no inherent characteristics that warrant inferior social outcomes. Thus, all inequality is seen as a legacy of discrimination and a social injustice to be remedied. By contrast, political conservatives favor a far narrower definition that limits the concept’s scope by including only actions intended to restrict a group’s chances. For solid conceptual reasons, sociologists seldom follow suit (but see Burkey

1978, p. 79). First, an intentionality criterion returns the concept to the realm of psychology and deflects attention from restraining social structure. Second, the invisibility of intentions creates insuperable obstacles to documenting discrimination.

DIRECT AND INDIRECT DISCRIMINATION

Sociologists’ understanding of intricate societal patterns sensitizes them to the fact that disadvantage accruing from intentional discrimination typically cumulates, extends far beyond the original injury, and long outlives the deliberate perpetration. Many sociologists distinguish between direct and indirect discrimination (Pettigrew 1985). Direct discrimination occurs at points where inequality is generated, often intentionally. When decisions are based explicitly on race, discrimination is direct. Indirect discrimination is the perpetuation or magnification of the original injury.

It occurs when the inequitable results of direct discrimination are used as a basis for later decisions

(‘‘past-in-present discrimination’’), or decisions in linked institutions (‘‘side-effect discrimination’’)

(Feagin and Feagin 1986). Hence, discrimination is indirect when an ostensibly nonracial criterion serves as a proxy for race in determining social outcomes.

To illustrate with wages, direct discrimination exists when equally qualified blacks and whites or men and women are paid at different rates for the same work. Indirect discrimination exists when the two groups are paid unequally because prior discrimination in employment, education, or housing created apparent differences in qualifications or channeled the groups into betterand worsepaying jobs. This direct/indirect distinction resembles the legal distinction between disparate treatment and disparate impact. While intentional direct discrimination may have triggered the

causal chain, the original injury is often perpetuated and magnified by unwitting accomplices. Intentionality criteria deny that the continuing disadvantage is a legacy of discrimination.

Years ago, Williams outlined the concept differently: ‘‘Discrimination may be said to exist to the degree that individuals of a given group who are otherwise formally qualified are not treated in conformity with these nominally universal institutionalized codes.’’ (Williams 1947, p. 39, italics added). For Antonovsky (1960, p. 81), discrimination involves ‘‘. . . injurious treatment of persons on grounds rationally irrelevant to the situation’’ (italics added). Economists use starker terms. Becker (1968, p. 81) held that economic discrimination occurs ‘‘. . . against members of a group whenever their earnings fall short of the amount ’warranted’ by their abilities’’ (italics added).

Two problems arise with these definitions.

First, the assessment of ‘‘abilities’’ and of what treatment is ‘‘rationally’’ relevant or ‘‘warranted’’ is no easy task. Critical examination of common practice uncovers many instances where formal qualifications and ‘‘nominally universal institutionalized codes’’ prove not to provide a logical basis for distinctions. Employment testing litigation demonstrates that when hiring criteria once legitimized by tradition or ‘‘logic’’ are put to scientific test, they often fail to predict job performance in the assumed fashion. Analogous fallacies have been identified in the conventional wisdom guiding admission to advanced education. Hence, nominally universalistic standards may provide an altogether illogical basis for decision making. If such misguided selection procedures also work to the disadvantage of historical victims of discrimination, these practices are not exempted from the charge of discrimination by their universalistic facade.

The second problem with these definitions is that they ignore another, prevalent form of indirect discrimination. Even where nominally universalistic standards do serve some legitimate social function, such as selecting competent workers, adverse impact of these standards on those who bear the cumulated disadvantage of historical discrimination cannot be disregarded.

The complexity of discrimination and unresolved issues about its definition impede easy application of social science methods to inform institutional policy. Apparently rigorous quantitative

analyses often only camouflage the crucial issues, as critical examination of wage differential decompositions reveals.

THE DECOMPOSITION APPROACH

Assessments of discrimination produced by decomposing gross race or gender differences in wages or other social outcomes are common in sociology (e.g., Corcoran and Duncan 1978; Farley

1984, Rosenfeld and Kalleberg 1990) as well as in economics (e.g., Gill 1989). One segment of the gross intergroup differential is defined by its empirical linkage to ‘‘qualifications’’ and other factors deemed legitimate determinants of social rewards. The second, residual segment not demonstrably linked to ‘‘legitimate’’ determinants of the outcomes often is presented as the estimate of discrimination. However, in the absence of better information than usually available and greater agreement on what constitutes discrimination, no unique estimate is possible. Through their choice of control variables to index ‘‘legitimate’’ determinants of social outcomes and their interpretation of findings, researchers wittingly or unwittingly shape their answers. Any appearance of scientific certitude is an illusion. For example, estimated proportions of the gender earnings gap caused by discrimination in the United States range from Sanborn’s (1969) 10 percent or less to Blinder’s (1973) 100 percent. Predictably, each has been challenged (Bergman and Adelman 1973; Rosensweig and Morgan 1976).

An Illustrative Decomposition Study. An analysis of gender differentials in faculty salaries at a large university illustrates the difficulty of separating ‘‘legitimate’’ wage differentials from inequity

(Taylor 1988). About 90 percent of a $10,000 gender difference in faculty salaries was empirically linked to three factors widely considered legitimate determinants of faculty pay: academic rank, age, and discipline. Women tend to hold lower academic rank, to be younger, and more often to be affiliated with poorly-paid disciplines than men. Insofar as women’s lower salaries are linked to rank, age, and discipline, is the salary differential untainted by gender discrimination? Conventional wage differentials imply an unequivocal yes. If a simple answer is given, it should be no. But in truth, when policy makers ask for dollar estimates

of inequity that the institution is obliged to remedy, the answers are neither unequivocal nor simple.

If the university’s promotion system has operated fairly, a gender gap reflecting differences in rank may be warranted. If gender bias has existed in the university’s promotion system, depressing the average academic rank of women faculty, the resulting deficit in women’s salaries reflects indirect discrimination. Attention should then be directed to the offending promotion processes. However, direct salary adjustments may also be in order, because gender bias in promotions weakens the link between rank and merit. Inequitable depression of women’s ranks would not necessarily lessen their actual contributions to the faculty, just their status. Using rank as a universalistic determinate of salary would then undermine the goal this practice is claimed to promote—the matching of rewards to contributions.

Salary differences tied to the age differential of female and male faculty also raise troublesome questions. If the relative youth of women faculty reflects lower retention and higher turnover as a result of discriminatory review processes or generally inhospitable conditions, salary differentials tied to age differences are again examples of indirect discrimination. The evidence would signal a need for institutional efforts to improve the retention of women faculty. But here it is not clear that salary adjustments are warranted. Because faculty contributions may be a function of experience, application of the universalistic age criterion is arguably reasonable. Any gender gap in salary tied to age differentials could, then, be both a legacy of discrimination and a reasonable conditioning of rewards on contributions. Complicating the issue further is the fact that affirmative action efforts often meet with greatest success in recruiting junior candidates. Thus, without supplementary data, it is not even clear whether an age-linked gender gap in salary reflects continuing institutional discrimination or affirmative hiring.

Gender differences in salary associated with discipline present even more complicated interpretational problems. Women and men are distributed across academic disciplines in a fashion that mirrors the gender distribution across occupations. Disciplinary differences in average salary likewise mirror wage differentials across occupations. But are the differing occupational

distributions simply a matter of gender differences in preferences or abilities with no implication of discrimination? Or are women steered away from lucrative fields, so that gender differentials in salary linked to disciplinary affiliation represent indirect discrimination in training, recruitment, and hiring? Or does the pattern of occupational wage differentials mirrored in disciplinary differences represent direct discrimination, an influence of gender composition per se on occupational wage structures (England et al. 1988)? In the latter case, assignment of responsibility for remedy presents particular problems. The university, like any other single employer, is simultaneously vulnerable to competitive forces of the wider labor market and a constituent element of that market. Defiance of the market by a single organization is costly to that organization; adherence by all organizations to the broader occupational wage structure perpetuates gender inequity and carries broader costs.

This faculty salary study did not examine the role of scientific ‘‘productivity.’’ But the inclusion of productivity measures among the control variables raises further difficulties. On standard ‘‘productivity’’ measures, women faculty average lower scores than men (Fox 1990). Thus, an institutional study of salary differentials might find some segment of the male/female salary gap linked to productivity differences. Fox’s research demonstrates, however, that gender differences in scientific productivity reflect contrasting levels of resources that institutions provide to male and female faculty. Like age and rank, the gender difference in productivity may itself be a product of institutional discrimination. Thus, salary differentials based on male/female productivity differences also may represent indirect discrimination. The new ingredient here is that institutional shaping of productivity is subtle. Scientific productivity is ordinarily seen as an outgrowth of talent and effort, not potentially gender-biased institutional resource allocation. Solid documentation of this indirect discrimination process offers another challenge for researchers.

COMPLEXITIES OF DISCRIMINATION

AND REMEDY

Critical reflection on this decomposition study highlights a set of interrelated points about the

complex nature of discrimination and unresolved issues of remedy.

1.In American society today, the injuries of indirect discrimination are often far more extensive than those of direct discrimination. This conclusion does not imply that direct discrimination no longer exists

(Reskin 1998). The continued operation of direct forms of discrimination is indicated by employment complaint records. American women and minorities have filed almost 1.5 million job discrimination complaints since 1965 (Blumrosen 1996, p. 4). In 1994 alone, over 150,000 such complaints were filed; 91,000 to local and state agencies and 64,000 to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (Leonard 1994, p. 24). Of course, not all complaints reflect genuine discrimination; on the other hand, not all discrimination prompts formal complaints. Many major corporations were found guilty of direct race or gender discrimination in the

1990s. And employment audits using paired, equally qualified applicants reveal widespread direct discrimination (Reskin

1998, pp. 25–29).

2.Apparently reasonable universalistic principles may on closer examination be unnecessary or even disfunctional. Scru-

tiny of employment criteria prompted by the Supreme Court’s 1971 Griggs v. Duke Power Co. decision has provided useful models for challenging nominally universalistic standards. Where it is possible to substitute standards that do as well or better at screening or evaluation with-

out adversely affecting historical targets of discrimination, there are gains for all involved.

3.When gaps in actual qualifications are a legacy of discrimination, more extensive remedies are needed. Where training deficits impair employability, or inadequate preparation impedes admission to higher education, attention should be given to the earlier schooling processes that generated these deficiencies. This form of remedy aids future generations. In the meantime, compensatory training can

reduce the liabilities of those who have already fallen victim to inferior schools.

4.Microcosms cannot escape the discriminatory impact of the societal macrocosm. Just as salary differences across academic disciplines reflect general occupational wage structures, institutions are often both prey to and participant in broader social forces. Narrow, legalistic approaches to remedy are inadequate for addressing this dynamic of discrimination.

5.Empirical research on group discrimination must mirror the phenomenon in its variety and complexity. The regres-

sion decomposition approach has proven useful but has its limitations (see also Dempster 1988, and the ensuing commentary). Regression analyses could provide more pertinent information if based on more homogeneous job groups (Conway and Roberts 1994) and on structural equation models that test reciprocal causation. Most important, if the aim is to guide policy, a framework far more complex than the dichotomous discrimination- or-not approach is required. The sociological arsenal of methods offers other promising approaches. Research that traces the actual processes of institutional discrimination is essential (e.g., Braddock and McPartland 1987, 1989). Also needed is attention to victims’ perceptions of discrimination (e.g., Feagin and Sikes 1994) and investigation of the changes generated by anti-discrimination efforts. Another approach involves cross-national comparative research, which we consider below.

EFFECTIVE REMEDIAL INTERVENTIONS

Direct racial and gender discrimination in the United States has declined in recent decades— more slowly in the 1980s and 1990s than in the 1960s and 1970s. But what caused this decline? Many factors were involved, but governmental intervention was an important impetus. For example, blacks in South Carolina made dramatic economic gains in manufacturing during the late 1960s. Heckman and Payner (1989) demonstrated that human capital, supply shifts, and tight labor

markets could not explain the sudden improvements. It was federal anti-discrimination programs, they concluded, that made a decisive contribution to the gains.

More general assessments also show that antidiscrimination legislation did reduce direct job discrimination nationally (Burstein 1985). It did not, however, eliminate the problem. Nor did such laws effectively attack indirect discrimination. For this more difficult problem, affirmative action programs were needed and have had some success (Reskin 1998). The resistance to such programs, however, underscores the difficulty of establishing effective remedies for the more subtle forms of discrimination.

DISCRIMINATION IN WESTERN EUROPE

Beyond racial and gender discrimination in the United States, the same basic concerns and principles arise for other nations and targets. Discrimination against Western Europe’s new immigrant minorities is pervasive (Castles 1984; MacEwen

1995; Pettigrew 1998). Both direct and indirect discrimination are involved, though the indirect forms are largely unrecognized in Europe.

Investigators have repeatedly uncovered direct discrimination in England (Amin et al. 1988;

Daniel 1968; Gordon and Klug 1984; Smith 1976). Controlled tests reveal the full litany of discriminatory forms involving employment, public accommodations, housing, the courts, insurance, banks, even car rentals. Employment discrimination poses the most serious problem. In every European Union nation, minorities have far higher unemployment rates than the majority group. In 1990 in the Netherlands, Moroccans and Turks had unemployment rates above 40 percent compared with the native Dutch rate of 13 percent (Pettigrew and Meertens 1996). During the 1974–1977 recession, West German manufacturing reduced its labor force by 765,000—42 percent of whom were foreign workers (Castles 1984, p. 148).

As in the United States, there are many reasons for minority unemployment disparities. The

‘‘last-in, first-out’’ principle selectively affects the younger minority workers. Typically less skilled, they are more affected by job upgrading. Minorities also are more likely to be in older, declining

industries. But these patterns are not accidental.

Planners put minorities into these industries for cheaper labor precisely because of their decline. In addition, these multiple factors offer insufficient explanations for the greater unemployment of minorities. Veenman and Roelandt (1990) found that education, age, sex, region, and employment level explained only a small portion of the differential unemployment rates in the Netherlands.

Indirect discrimination arises when the inability to obtain citizenship restricts the opportunities of non-European Union minorities. It limits their ability to get suitable housing, employment, and schooling. A visa is necessary in order to travel to other European Union countries. In short, the lives of Europe’s non-citizens are severely circumscribed (Wilpert 1993). Castles (1984) contends that the guest-worker system that brought many of the immigrants to Europe was itself a state-con- trolled system of institutional discrimination. It established the newcomers as a stigmatized ‘‘outgroup’’ suitable for low-status jobs but not citizenship. Widespread indirect discrimination was inevitable for these victims of direct discrimination.

Anti-discrimination remediation has been largely ineffective in Europe. Basic rights in Germany are guaranteed only to citizens. So, the disadvantages of non-citizenship include limited means to combat discrimination. There is extensive German legislation to combat anti-Semitism and Nazi ideology, but these laws have proved difficult to apply to non-citizens. The German constitution explicitly forbids discrimination on the basis of origin, race, language, beliefs, or religion—but not citizenship. Indeed, the Federal Constitutional

Court has ruled that differential treatment based on citizenship is constitutional if there is a reasonable basis for it and if it is not wholly arbitrary. Hence, a German court upheld higher taxes for foreign bar owners than German bar owners. And restaurants can refuse service to Turks and others on the grounds that their entry might lead to intergroup disturbances (Layton-Henry and Wilpert 1994).

Few means of combatting discrimination are available in France either. Commentators often view discrimination as ‘‘natural,’’ as something universally triggered when a ‘‘threshold of tolerance’’ (seuil de tolerance) is surpassed (MacMaster

1991). Without supporting evidence, this rationalization supports quotas and dispersal policies that limit minority access to suitable housing.

The Netherlands, United Kingdom, and Sweden have enacted anti-discrimination legislation that specifically applies to the new immigrant minorities. And the Dutch have instituted modest affirmative action programs for women and minorities (De Vries and Pettigrew 1994). Not coincidentally, these countries make citizenship easier to obtain than Germany. Yet this legislation has been largely ineffective for two interrelated reasons. First, European legal systems do not allow class action suits—a forceful North American weapon to combat discrimination. Second, European efforts rely heavily on individual complaints rather than systemic remediation. Britain’s 1976 Act gave the Commission for Racial Equality the power to cast a broad net, but individual complaints remain the chief tool (MacEwen 1995).

It is a sociological truism that individual efforts are unlikely to alter such systemic phenomena as discrimination. Mayhew (1968) showed how individual suits and complaints are largely nonstrategic. Minorities bring few charges against the worst discriminators, because they avoid applying for jobs with them in the first place. Complaints about job promotion are common, but they are made against employers who hire minorities. Thus, effective anti-discrimination laws must provide broad powers to an enforcement agency to initiate strategic, institutionwide actions that uproot the structural foundations of discrimination. Mayhew’s

American analysis proves to be just as accurate in

Western Europe.

CONCLUSIONS

A comprehensive understanding of societal discrimination in both North America and Western Europe must encompass two propositions.

1.The long-lasting character of discrimination means that the effects typically outlive the initiators of discriminatory practices.

Apart from its importance to the law, this feature of modern discrimination has critical implications for sociological theory. Discrimination is fundamentally normative; its structural web operates in large part independent of the dominant group’s