Discrimination and Disparities

by Thomas Sowell

The first edition of this book addressed the seemingly invincible fallacy that statistical disparities in socioeconomic outcomes imply either biased treatment of the less fortunate or genetic deficiencies in the less fortunate.

This edition takes on other widespread fallacies, including a non sequitur underlying the prevailing social vision of our time—namely, that if individual economic benefits are not due solely to individual merit, there is justification for having politicians redistribute those benefits.

Neither side may have taken all the factors into consideration, but having to cope with each other’s different views may bring out considerations that neither side gave much thought to at the outset.

The goal of Discrimination and Disparities will be met if it can provide clarification on some major social issues that are too often mired in dogmas and obfuscation.

At one end of a spectrum of explanations offered is the belief that those who have been less fortunate in their outcomes are genetically less capable. At the other end of the spectrum is the belief that those less fortunate are victims of other people who are more fortunate.

there seems to be general agreement that the disparities found in the real world differ greatly from what might be expected by random chance.

What does this little exercise in arithmetic mean in the real world? One conclusion is that we should not expect success to be evenly or randomly distributed among individuals, groups, institutions or nations in endeavors with multiple prerequisites—which is to say, most meaningful endeavors.

As for factors behind differences in educational and career outcomes within Terman’s group, the biggest differentiating factor was in family backgrounds. Men with the most outstanding achievements came from middle-class and upper-class families, and were raised in homes where there were many books.

“disparate impact” statistics, showing different outcomes for different groups, have been enough to create a presumption of discrimination.

Behind many attempts to explain, and change, glaring disparities in outcomes among human beings is the implicit assumption that such disparities would not exist without corresponding disparities in either people’s genetic makeup or in the way they are treated by other people.

neither belief survives the test of empirical evidence.

A study of National Merit Scholarship finalists, for example, found that, among finalists from five-child families, the first-born was the finalist more often than the other four siblings combined.

The fact that twins tend to average several points lower IQs than people born singly32 reinforces this inference.

Children of parents with professional occupations have been found to hear an average of 2,100 words per hour, while children from working-class families hear 1,200 words per hour, and children from families on welfare hear 600 words per hour.35

People from different social backgrounds may also have different goals and priorities—a possibility paid little or no attention in many studies that measure how much opportunity there is by how much upward movement takes place,37 as if everyone is equally striving to move up, and only society’s barriers produce different outcomes.

In the second half of the twentieth century, with Jews being less than one percent of the world’s population, they received 22 percent of the Nobel Prizes in chemistry, 32 percent in medicine and 32 percent in physics.42

The contrast between the fate of China and the fate of the “overseas Chinese” was demonstrated when, as late as 1994, the 57 million “overseas Chinese” produced as much wealth as the billion people living in China.47

It was expatriate Jewish nuclear physicists who brought the threat of a Nazi nuclear bomb to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s attention, and urged the creation of an American program to produce such a bomb before the Nazis got one. Moreover, Jewish scientists—both expatriate and American—played a major role in the development of the American nuclear bomb.48

The fact that Northern Europe and Western Europe would move ahead of Southern Europe economically and technologically many centuries later was a heartening sign that backwardness in a given era does not mean backwardness forever.

more than 90 percent of all the tornadoes in the entire world occur in just one country—the United States.

On a single Peruvian tree, Wilson (1988) found 43 species of ants, comparable to the entire ant fauna of the British Isles.61

Neither in nature nor among human beings are either equal or randomly distributed outcomes automatic.

The idea that the world would be a level playing field, if it were not for either genes or discrimination, is a preconception in defiance of both logic and facts.

Geography and demography, for example, are among the many factors that make equal or random outcomes among human beings very unlikely.

Climate and soil are likewise geographic obstacles to equal prospects or equal outcomes.

Much of the Western Hemisphere is similar, geographically, to Europe, in terms of fertile soil, navigable waterways and climate, but was utterly devoid of heavy-duty draft animals and beasts of burden like horses and oxen before such animals, which played major roles in the economic development of Europe, were brought to the Western Hemisphere by Europeans.

The research of Professor Myron Weiner of MIT led him to point out: “All multi-ethnic societies exhibit a tendency for ethnic groups to engage in different occupations, have different levels (and, often, types) of education, receive different incomes, and occupy a different place in the social hierarchy.”78

A monumental empirical treatise, Human Accomplishment by Charles Murray,

Demography Among the most overlooked factors in socioeconomic outcome differences, both within nations and between nations, are such demographic factors as differences in median age. These differences are not small, and neither are their consequences.

In the United States, for example, the median age of Japanese Americans is 51 and the median age of Mexican Americans is 27.84

Is it surprising if Hispanic Americans are not as well represented as Japanese Americans in the professions, or in managerial careers, for which long years of education and experience are usually required?

In these circumstances, equal rights and equal treatment of all does not mean equal performances—and virtually guarantees unequal performances and outcomes.

This does not mean that either genes or discrimination can simply be dismissed as a possible factor in any given circumstance, but only that hard evidence would be required to substantiate either of these possibilities, which remain testable hypotheses, without being foregone conclusions.

American colleges and universities had hundreds of courses on eugenics then,86 just as many academic institutions today have courses—and whole departments—teaching that outcome disparities imply discrimination.

On both sides of the Atlantic, and in both eras, leading intellectual and political figures were in the forefront of those promoting the prevailing presumption of their times.

In short, stampedes toward one-factor explanations do not exempt even the leading intellectuals of an era.

Two of the monumental catastrophes of the twentieth century—Nazism and Communism—led to the slaughter of millions of human beings by their own governments, in the name of either ridding the world of the burden of “inferior” races or ridding the world of “exploiters” responsible for the poverty of the exploited. While each of these beliefs might have been testable hypotheses, their greatest political triumphs came as dogmas placed beyond the reach of evidence or logic.

While Karl Marx’s vast three-volume economic treatise was a far greater intellectual achievement, “exploitation” was at no point in its 2,500 pages treated as a testable hypothesis. Exploitation was instead the foundation assumption on which an elaborate intellectual superstructure was built—

The fundamental question is: Which kind of discrimination has led to such disparate outcomes?

This is ultimately an empirical question,

Another way of saying the same thing is: Are group disparities in outcomes a result of internal differences in behavior and capabilities, accurately assessed by outsiders, or are those disparities due to external impositions based on the biased misjudgments or antagonisms of outsiders?

Follow up question is even if it’s the former, what should a society do to bring more balance if that is desired?

may nevertheless be indignant at banks that engage in “redlining”—that is, putting a whole neighborhood off-limits as a place to invest their depositors’ money.

What matters, crucially, to the employer is the cost of determining which individual is or is not an alcoholic, when job applicants all show up sober

there are serious costs inherent in the situation, so that either 70 percent of the people in Group X or employers or customers—or all three—are going to end up paying the cost of the alcoholism of 30 percent of the people in Group X. This is certainly not judging each job applicant as an individual, so it is not Discrimination I in the purest sense. On the other hand, it is also not Discrimination II in the sense of decisions based on a personal bias or antipathy toward that whole group.

those particular employers who automatically did criminal background checks on all their employees tended to hire more young black males than did other employers.

The ideal, and more costly, variation is seeking and paying the cost for information that would permit judging each individual as an individual, regardless of the group from which that individual comes. This we can call Discrimination IA.

where such information is too costly to be worth it, individuals may be judged by empirical evidence on the group they are part of. This can be called Discrimination IB.

That is the empirical basis that can lead employers to practice Discrimination IB, even if the employers have no bias or aversion to those less likely to be hired.

Moreover, while prices were higher in inner-city, low-income neighborhood stores, rates of profit on investments in such stores were not higher than average but lower than average.

But if businesses in these neighborhoods do not recover their higher costs of doing business there in the prices they charge, they face the prospect of having to go out of business.