Which term denotes the valuation in the labor market of personal characteristics unrelated to productivity?

• A. Disparate impact
• B. Consumer racial profiling
• C. Employment discrimination
• D. Descriptive stereotyping

Answer: (C)

Discrimination in the labor market is the practice of valuing or compensating workers for characteristics unrelated to their productivity. The term that best captures this is employment discrimination, which refers to treating or evaluating someone unfavorably in hiring, pay, promotion, or other job aspects based on attributes like race, gender, age, or religion rather than on their actual qualifications or work performance.

Disparate impact deals with how a policy or practice unintentionally affects a protected group, not the broader idea of valuing workers for nonproductive traits. Consumer racial profiling focuses on judgments in consumer markets, not employment. Descriptive stereotyping refers to beliefs about groups rather than the act of making labor market decisions based on nonwork-related characteristics.