Taste-based discrimination

rdf:langString Taste-based discrimination

rdf:langString Taste-based discrimination is an economic model of labor market discrimination which argues that employers' prejudice or dislikes in an organisational culture rooted in prohibited grounds can have negative results in hiring minority workers, meaning that they can be said to have a taste for discrimination. The model further posits that employers discriminate against minority applicants to avoid interacting with them, regardless of the applicant's productivity, and that employers are willing to pay a financial penalty to do so. It is one of the two leading theoretical explanations for labor market discrimination, the other being statistical discrimination. The taste-based model further supposes that employers' preference for employees of certain groups is unrelated to their preference for more productive employees. According to this model, employees that are members of a group that is discriminated against may have to work harder for the same wage or accept a lower wage for the same work as other employees. Taste-based discrimination can be observed from the side of employers, customers or co-workers. In the case of an employer's "taste for discrimination", the employer aims to avoid non-monetary costs and does so often based on his own preferences. In the case of co-workers and customers, they may not want to interact with people belonging to a certain group, which the employer considers during the hiring process.