When Equality Causes Inequity: A Note on Widening Wealth Disparities in Equal Selection Systems

Purpose: The primary goal of equal employment opportunity movements in the United States has been to promote fairness in hiring, promotion, and other organizational practices. This has predominantly been implemented in the form of laws and guidelines to remove biases and create equality of opportunity across protected classes. Arguments in favor of such practices include overcoming historical social disparities. However, equality of opportunity does not necessarily result in greater equality in outcomes, such as in wealth distributions. We investigate the ability of varying forms of employment opportunity to promote socioeconomic equality. Methods: Virtual experiments simulated wealth trajectories for Black and White American racial groups in both equal opportunity and quota-based selection contexts. In these experiments, wages and return on investment were held constant, and we varied initial differences in wealth. Findings: Simulations suggested that historical inequality in racial wealth distributions grow even under utopian equal opportunity selection contexts. Quota-based systems in favor of Black Americans could offset these historical inequalities. Originality: Attempts to address racial wealth inequality promote equal opportunity during selection in organizations and higher education. Although this paradigm produces fair outcomes in the short run, it cannot offset compounding differences in initial wealth disparities. Any true solution to addressing the racial wealth gap will likely involve race-based initiatives; quota-based selection systems are one such approach which can offset initial differences in wealth.