Economic Opportunities Available for African American Women Essay

Economic Opportunities Available for African American Women - Essay Example Both males and females of African ancestry often face discrimination in different aspects of their lives, ranging from educational opportunities to provision of healthcare services and employment in the labor market. Extensive research has been conducted to shed more light on various impacts of racial and gender discrimination, such as low self-esteem, poor performance of students at schools and employees at the workplace, as well as and low economic growth and development. Blacks also have greater health issues such as prolonged depression, increased suicides, more AIDS and a reduced sense of personal achievement, along with a much higher death rate for many of the leading causes of premature demise (Williams 2001). Many research studies have also been conducted to determine the best possible solutions to solve problems related to these effects of discrimination. However, very little research has ever been conducted to determine how racial and gender discrimination has adversely aff ected the economic capabilities of African-American women. With this in mind, this research study hypothesizes that gender and race are the major sources of discrimination and have the most difficult effects on the economic capabilities of African-American women. ... A new aim of recent research studies by economists studying the labor market has been to determine the implications of racial discrimination for victims and other members of that particular race. For example, racial discrimination against African-Americans is known to reduce possibilities of employment in many multinational organizations. Furthermore, previous studies have found that discrimination mostly results from gender differences, amongst other factors. However, these past research studies have failed to determine the various effects of racial and gender discrimination on economic opportunities available to African-American women. Therefore, there is a great need to study the adverse effects of discrimination on economic opportunities available to African-American women. Sellers and Shelton (2008) argue that African-American women are at greater risk of gender discrimination due to social stereotypes, unequal income distribution, limited rights to productive inputs, such as cr edit facilities or financial loans, property ownership, and management of earned income as well as other race-related biases. By definition, racial discrimination refers to an act of maltreating an individual or a group of individuals based on their race. For example, an African-American woman may not be warmly welcomed in activities of a local church that is dominated by white Americans due to her skin color. Puhl et al.’s (2008) definition of racial discrimination usually includes distinction, restriction, or preference of an individual based on his or her skin color, race, or ethnic origin. This paper aims to examine what the effects of discrimination based on gender and race is like for