Using the Peters–Belson method in equal employment opportunity personnel evaluations†

摘要

The Peters–Belson method has been used as an alternative approach to standard linear regression analysis to examine potential wage discrimination as it also accounts for any differences in the qualifications of the applicants. To apply the Peters–Belson method, one first conducts a regression analysis on the favoured class and applies the resulting model to the non-favoured class to identify whether this class would have received a different rate of pay if they had been treated the same as their favoured counterparts. Since this method was recently extended to explore disparities in the personnel selections via logistic regression, we will examine the general properties of this method as compared to standard regression analysis. The effects of the demographic mix and size of the applicant pool, the difference in the distribution of the qualifications and the employer's evaluation criteria on the estimated disparity will be examined. Some of the philosophical and legal issues from selected court cases surrounding the use of these two techniques will also be discussed.