Asymmetrical Information explains what statistical discrimination is:
In Economics, in work done by Gary Becker (Nobel Prize, Chicago) racism is defined as a preference for one race over the other. If an employer picks a stupid white candidate over a smart black candidate he is making a racist decision — the stupid white candidate will be less productive than the smart black candidate and therefore the employer has picked less productivity (and money) over more. He is compensated for this because he prefers white people over black people.
However, an employer that picks a smart white person over a stupid black person is not racist. He’s simply picking the most productive employee.
If you do not have detailed information on an individual, it is rational to evaluate them on group averages. If you are walking down a dark street at night, and a small, elderly female approaches from the other side, you would feel safe because small elderly females are statistically non-criminal. On the other hand, if a large, young man approaches, you might be more worried. If the man is black, given higher crime rates among blacks, you may be more concerned still.
Judging people on group averages when you have no additional information is called “statistical discrimination”, although given how loaded a term “discrimination” is a better phrase may be “statistical differentiation”. Statistical differentiation is not racist in that it is not a preference for one race or another, it is simply a decision based on group averages when individual information is not available.
The full post can be found here. For more on statistical discrimination, and for those who have watched the movie Crash, read this.
HP: I have become increasingly worried about you recently. Do you realize that unless you share your own view, the articles you exhibit on your blog represent you? There is nothing positive about “statistical differentiation” in judging another human being. Does this mean that my smart, effective, hard-working principal should not have been hired because she is short, black and female when most administrators in the District are tall, white and male? I do not judge others by statistics and I hope you don’t either. Those who do miss out on real opportunities and compound the racism in this country.
I don’t think that ’statistical discrimination’ is a good thing, but I do think that it is a practically inevitable result given human nature. And I do agree with the author in the sense that it is drastically different than full blown discrimination.
Have you watched the movie Crash? What do you think about this review of that movie?
My only point in bringing up statistical discrimination is what the author of that review alludes to at the end.
next entry, try a little more HP, a little less “quoting”
Oh here we go again…:-)
I keep getting this feeling like you guys are trying to tell me something….
What ever gave you that impression? lol
I think statistical discrimination is a fact and we can’t no anything about it.
Our everyday lives depend on statistics why not discimination?
I agree with John, and HP on this one… but statistical differentiation is, in fact, what you go through when you take a loan from a bank, when you purchase insurance companies and when you watch advertisements on TV.
Umm… small mistake on my comment… ‘purchase insurance companies’ should read ‘purchase insurance’.
“IF you DO NOT HAVE DETAILED INFORMATION on an individual, it is rational to evaluate them on group averages.”
Just a guess here but, I would assume that the short black female had a resume when she applied for the position of principal. I’m thinking that qualifies as “detailed information”. As such, the scenario doesn’t apply to that which the author was speaking.