(Uncharitably but lovingly joking:) Americans when discussing social phenomena: It seems pretty tricky to tell what the effect of our laws is on our culture. If only there were other places we could look at!
German here: We have laws prohibiting outright discrimination during hiring, but the (fairly high) onus is on applicants to prove that they have been discriminated, and certainly there are no government agencies going after companies publicly because of insufficient women or minorities. Yet almost nobody uses IQ tests during hiring, and work places are very very much some form old mad men style old boys club. Germany would, however, be a data point in favor of Hanania's theory since companies focus comparatively less on increasing representation of minorities and women during hiring (in case of women perhaps more in recent years, but I don't think this is downstream of new laws). A caveat is that this is from public perception, I have only ever worked at small no-name companies with very irrelevant HR departments.
I personally would need to see a stronger breadcrumb of large cases and settlements brought about by American government agencies to believe that they are a deciding factor. I can see companies being pretty risk averse, and lawyers being biased of advising their clients that they do need to implement complicated rules around hiring, and why yes, they of course need legal experts to do this correctly. On the other hand, it seems employees get shafted regularly in clearly illegal ways by large corporations (wage theft, ignoring mandatory protection laws, etc.), and I find it hard to imagine that "merit-based hiring is forbidden but so are quotas" would be the one rule government agencies care enough to enforce above others.
Oh, I just recalled: Our Eastern European branch office DID turn into a old boys club on Friday afternoons, to the degree that some of the women there just went home at 2pm because it became unbearable to work there.
(Uncharitably but lovingly joking:) Americans when discussing social phenomena: It seems pretty tricky to tell what the effect of our laws is on our culture. If only there were other places we could look at!
German here: We have laws prohibiting outright discrimination during hiring, but the (fairly high) onus is on applicants to prove that they have been discriminated, and certainly there are no government agencies going after companies publicly because of insufficient women or minorities. Yet almost nobody uses IQ tests during hiring, and work places are very very much some form old mad men style old boys club. Germany would, however, be a data point in favor of Hanania's theory since companies focus comparatively less on increasing representation of minorities and women during hiring (in case of women perhaps more in recent years, but I don't think this is downstream of new laws). A caveat is that this is from public perception, I have only ever worked at small no-name companies with very irrelevant HR departments.
I personally would need to see a stronger breadcrumb of large cases and settlements brought about by American government agencies to believe that they are a deciding factor. I can see companies being pretty risk averse, and lawyers being biased of advising their clients that they do need to implement complicated rules around hiring, and why yes, they of course need legal experts to do this correctly. On the other hand, it seems employees get shafted regularly in clearly illegal ways by large corporations (wage theft, ignoring mandatory protection laws, etc.), and I find it hard to imagine that "merit-based hiring is forbidden but so are quotas" would be the one rule government agencies care enough to enforce above others.
Oh, I just recalled: Our Eastern European branch office DID turn into a old boys club on Friday afternoons, to the degree that some of the women there just went home at 2pm because it became unbearable to work there.