Treating employed individuals differently by giving them fewer rewards or opportunities based on job-related criteria is called what?

• A. Direct discrimination
• B. Indirect discrimination
• C. Treatment discrimination
• D. Systemic bias

Answer: (C)

This is about discrimination in how people are treated at work. When rewards or opportunities are withheld from employees based on criteria tied to the job, and this leads to unequal treatment in practice, it’s called treatment discrimination. It focuses on the way decisions are made about pay, promotions, training, or other opportunities that result in some employees receiving fewer advantages than others, even if those criteria are presented as job-related.

This differs from direct discrimination, where the unfair treatment is clearly based on a protected characteristic (like race, gender, or age). Indirect discrimination involves a neutral policy that ends up disadvantaging a protected group. Systemic bias points to broader, organizational patterns that consistently disadvantage certain groups. An example of treatment discrimination would be consistently offering fewer advancement opportunities to a group of employees based on subjective criteria that aren’t truly related to performance or qualifications, thereby treating them differently in a way that harms their career progression.