Affirmative action around the world
Affirmative action is a policy of favoring minority, or economically disadvantaged candidates over qualified counterparts with the immediate goals of outreach, remedying discrimination, or achieving diversity, and the ultimate goals of attaining a racially just, a gender-free and equal opportunity society. It is known as quota/reservation in India, positive discrimination in UK, employment equity in Canada and South Africa, etc. However, one thing that is common throughout these programs is that they aim to reduce the inequalities through assistance either by positive discrimination or by reserving a quota for the disadvantaged.
The need for affirmative action pre-dominantly stems from history where a section of society was neglected or less fortunate to have access to basic necessities like education, sanitation, etc. Though it is a socio-economic issue, the evolution of the subject suggests political motives all along. Here we would explore the affirmative action across different countries and then objectively assess the program.
Affirmative Action in Malaysia:
Malaysia is a country with 23 million people with 50 percent Malay, 24 percent Chinese and 7 percent Indian. Earlier, the Chinese minority was much larger which at one time exceeded in size the Malay population.
Affirmative action in Malaysia is primarily targeted against the Chinese and Indians who held majority of seats in Universities, positions in government and private sectors like law, engineering, etc. The Malays felt threatened by the Asians, particularly Chinese and put systems in place to give Malays exclusive representation. Malays could increase their presence in all positions after few decades however this led to dissent among non-malays and further creation of a new country named Singapore
Affirmative Action in Sri Lanka:
The island nation of Sri Lanka, located about 20 miles off the southeast coast of India, has a population of 19 million. Roughly three-quarters of its people are Sinhalese and the principal minority, the Tamils, are less than one-sixth of the population. Since the middle of the twentieth century, Sri Lanka has undergone one of the most remarkable albeit catastrophic changes in the relationship between its majority and minority populations
The socio-economic disparities in Sri Lankan population was mostly from colonial era where the areas with British prospered due to convents with english education that translated to jobs and income. This created a natural supremacy of skilled workers. Politicians exploited these discrepancies to win elections eventually causing riots that killed thousands. However, the numbers improved for the Sinhalese over the decades albeit less satisfactorily but the fact that there were less clashes or riots before the affirmative action shows the dark side of this program.
Affirmative Action in India:
India’s experiment with affirmative action is the world’s oldest, locally known as “reservation” policy. It is an elaborate quota system for public jobs, places in publicly funded universities and in most elected assemblies. These are filled by members of designated, disadvantaged groups. These “reservations” or quotas were granted to groups based on their (presumably immutable) caste identities. The reservations in India were justified as a means of making up for millennia of discrimination based on birth such as caste.
A lot of emphasis was placed on uplifting the lower castes through quota system in education, taxation, employment and housing. However, there were huge disparities in the distribution of benefits.. Politicians are trying to look for new ways and groups to include in the quota. The sentiments are whipped up to incite violence and hatred that has resulted in riots in many parts of the country. This over-dramatization of the issue made objective assessment or empirical study impossible which gave a lot of room for politically charged hypothesis, schemes that allure people.
The result was the elite of the minority grabbed benefits while the lower sections remained same or were worse off. Further, attempts were made to correct this through introducing new steps like “Creamy layer” which further demarcates the quota receiving pool on the basis of income. Despite, promising it to be short term when started few decades ago, the program still shows no sign of nearing termination.
Affirmative Action in Nigeria:
Nigeria was not a country before colonial rule and it has the remnants of colonialism after independence. Further, it was an amalgamation of many diverse West African communities which bears fateful implications for its future as a multi-ethnic state. The regions brought together under British rule were different ethnically, economically, culturally, and geographically.
Nigerians had a gulf of differences between north and south regions since few areas in the south were chosen to have schools, hospitals, etc by the British empire which turned out to be the source for discrimination. After independence, there was a visible north-south divide since majority of north was uneducated and less competitive. All the government positions, university seats were held by south Nigerians in north Nigeria. It irked the north Nigerians since they are not able to get any representation even though they constitute majority. This led to riots, violence and even secession of the country, which was later merged back with arm twisting.
Though, the program was partially successful in increasing the north Nigerian’s presence in the institutions, it created a rift in society that led to violent protests and riots. Further, the irony is in the fact that Northern region did not simply have anyone to replace the ousted southerners and hence they recruited European officers in huge numbers.
Affirmative Action in United States:
Affirmative action in United States as envisaged by President Kennedy required that the government employers “not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, creed, color, or national origin” and “take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin”.
Currently, it includes college admissions, employment in public offices, housing among other sectors where efforts are made to give benefits to the marginalized. However, the narrative is clouded with outcomes like college admissions and jobs instead of skills and qualifications.
Analysis of affirmative action:
Affirmative action has been a political tool more than a social transformation method. In all the cases, I observed that the affirmative action thinks that providing opportunities without a level playing field does not serve the core intent of the action. Further, the reason for disadvantaged to be at disadvantage is not due to something that the others did to them but due to what the they did not do when it mattered. Given this scenario, the groups other than disadvantaged are at an undue disadvantage because of the policies favoring the disadvantaged give them opportunities directly.
The following are the major themes that I observed across countries
Education:
Access to education has been a priority and a root cause for catapulting families out of poverty. World over, education is one thing that groups fight for i.e. obstacles to access causes a lot of turbulence within and between groups. In India, Malaysia, Nigeria and USA, lack of education rendered the groups short of skills both for society and jobs
Further, the way affirmative action is executed in education is ineffective since the disadvantaged are just given priority over other groups in admission to the universities. Due to this approach, the disadvantages groups enter the colleges that they are not prepared for and hence either struggle to finish it or drop out. Also, the other groups students who are qualified enough lose out on opportunity because of less qualified but disadvantaged students.
Jobs:
Affirmative action in employment is a natural consequence of the lack of education. Jobs are essential not only for livelihood but for the future of younger kids. When jobs are given through affirmative action, instead of skill and qualification, the entire society as a whole decreases its quality of living and work efficiency.
In Malaysia, Nigeria and Sri Lanka where majority of jobs were held by the minority which gave rise to affirmative action and hence affirmative action was to give the majority a head start over skilled minorities.
Access to credit/finances:
Access to credit is a critical financial need for all the groups that would want to progress beyond the daily wage living. The disadvantaged find it extremely difficult to obtain credit when subjected to same standards as other groups. The easy access to credit is essential to build finances that can help families prosper. Malaysia is an example where when given special provisions for credit for Malays, the elite collaborated with Chinese and exploited the opportunity to increase their wealth while the poor and middle class continued to suffer.
Housing:
Housing and living is another facet of affirmative action. Housing for the marginalized is most often provided by the governments as a welfare measure. However, these are concentrated in few neighborhoods that become the hub of disadvantaged and it quickly becomes an area that public would like to avoid.
Lessons from the history:
If we observe the evolution of affirmative action in any or above countries, the common need is the economic progress. Race, color, caste and gender are a mask for the basic needs of groups to progress. The threat of backwardness lead to a perception of disadvantaged. This threat is magnified by selfish politicians who turn it into paranoia that makes even neighbors kill each other. It is being used largely for political gains and even though there is less than expected positive change in a larger time period, groups are at loggerheads and there are left with bitterness post few years of benefits that leaves society as a whole at a worse state in terms of harmony and peace.
There has been no attempt to study empirically the claims of progress due to affirmative action. It has largely been driven rhetoric and not by any objective study. The groups who have received the benefits do not seem to get better as a whole. The elite sections of the groups who have access to resources take advantage of the benefits to rise higher while the poorer sections remain poor despite the programs.
Finally, there have been some bright spots around the world which have succeeded to plug loopholes such as positive discrimination in UK or the introduction of creamy layer in India. Adaption to the changes in society is essential to improve the effectiveness of the program.
Reflections:
If studying history is one way to avoid repeating it, there is much to learn from the history of affirmative action policies that should never be repeated. In many countries, such policies have turned out to be methods of producing relatively minor benefits for a few and major problems for society as a whole. Both advocates and critics of such policies have over-estimated the benefits that have been transferred. Moreover, the distribution of benefits from group preferences and quotas often shows the same disparities as the broader social inequalities which they are supposed to be remedying
Focus should be on providing a level playing field to all the groups instead of giving the outcome as a benefit directly. This not only ensures that the disadvantaged are genuinely provided with skills and resources to compete with other groups but also makes them prepared for the challenges of the next level.
More objective studies need to be carried out on the effect of affirmative action on different groups. Pooling of different groups together escapes scrutiny of effect on sub groups, especially as seen in USA where sensationalisation of black-white disparities is common while Asian-American-white disparities are overlooked because sub group data is overlooked for political reasons.
An international and inter-governmental dialogue should be initiated across countries for exchange of ideas and solutions to basic idea of affirmative action. This ensures that knowledge is transferred and bright spots are adopted in better ways.
Finally, I believe that the social aspects of affirmative action are overly emphasized which when used for political gain trumps logic and reason. Shifting the narrative from social or emotion to objective reason and logic based on studies and research will yield better results.
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Citation:
[1] Sowell, T. (2004). Affirmative Action Around the World: An Empirical Study. Yale University Press. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1npfgb
