Support for Affirmative Action in Women's Employment: The Influence of Sex, Self-Interest and Social Inequality in the United States and England

摘要

Using 1975 survey data from the US and England, this study explored the determinants of attitudes toward affirmative action in women's employment. The study asserted that affirmative action is controversial because it attempts to change a country's stratification system. Individuals respond to affirmative action in terms of both their subjective orientations toward the stratification system and their objective status within that system. Objective status determines how individuals perceive their self-interest regarding affirmative action. Specifically, institutionalized sexual inequality creates conflicting influences on both men's and women's self-interest. The analysis found minimal additive effects but substantial interactive effects of sex. In each country, nearly one half the variance in men's attitudes was explained, but only negligible proportions of the variance in women's attitudes. General orientations toward the stratification system and objective social status were the best predictors of men's attitudes. For women, perceptions of inequality in women's employment status were the best predictors. Hypothesized effects of country differences in institutionalized inequality were also generally supported. The failure to predict women's affirmative action support was interpreted in light of possible differential effects of the women's movement on men's and women's attitudes toward change in the system of sexual inequality.