Recently, Congressional Democrats introduced legislation to make it easier for older workers to win age discrimination lawsuits. Age discrimination remains a significant workplace issue.
In recent ten years, 15.79 percent of cases brought to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, were described as successful claims. While this number is small given the number of workers covered by the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, many, if not most, instances of age discrimination are never sued, and cases hiring discrimination often go undetected.
Most of those who do sue are white, male middle-managers who are likely to have lost a sizeable salary and pension. For the most part, other groups do not sue because the costs of a lawsuit outweigh the potential benefits. Age discrimination remains a significant workplace issue.
There is strong experimental evidence for age discrimination in hiring, at least for entry-level jobs. Recently, I performed a labor market experiment in Boston in which I sent out thousands of resumes for fictitious (虛構(gòu)的) entry-level female candidates and measured response rate based on date of high school graduation. Among this group, younger applicants, whose date of high school graduation indicated that they were less than 50 years old, were 40 percent more
likely to be called back for an interview than were older applicants.
It is difficult to tell whether employment problems are worse for older workers than for other workers when times are bad. The number of discrimination lawsuits increases during times of high unemployment, but this finding by itself does not indicate an increased level of age discrimination. In times of higher unemployment, the opportunity cost to a lawsuit is lower than it is when times are good.
From the employer's perspective, mass layoffs may seem like a good chance to remove a higher proportion of generally more expensive older workers without the worry of being sued. On the other hand, employers may be less likely to remove protected older workers because' they still fear lawsuits. One thing we do know is that once an older worker loses a job, he or she is much less likely to find a new job than a younger worker is.
Unfortunately, the effect of legislation prohibiting age discrimination is not easy to see and may actually be part of the reason it is so difficult for older workers to find employment. If it is more difficult to fire an older worker than a younger worker, a firm will be less likely to want to hire older workers. Indeed, my research finds that in states where workers have longer time to bring a lawsuit claim, older men work fewer weeks per year, are less likely to be hired, and less likely to be fired than men in states where they do not have as much.
Not many people would suggest that we go back to a world prior to the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, in which advertisements specify the specific ages of people they are willing to hire. However, legislation prohibiting discrimination is no panacea (萬靈藥). The recent proposed congressional legislation could have both positive and negative effects on potential older workers.
1. A lot of cases of age discrimination are not found because
A. age discrimination law was just introduced recently.
B. other discriminated groups don't sue except the whites.
C. age discrimination cases are in large quantity and it is difficult to detect all of them.
D. many discriminated people don't sue and costs of a lawsuit outweigh potential benefits.
2. The labor market experiment in Boston shows that
A. younger male applicants are more likely to be hired than their female counterparts.
B. age discrimination is quite common in hiring process.
C. the author collected information by interviewing female applicants.
D. female applicants who are 50 years old will never have a chance to get a job.
3. What may lead to the increase of discrimination lawsuits during times of high unemployment?
A. The increase of age discrimination.
B. The decrease of age discrimination.
C. The decrease of opportunity cost to lawsuits.
D. The increase of opportunity cost to lawsuits, .
4. From the last paragraph, we learn that
A. employers could specify the ages of people they want to hire in the past.
B, all employers recruited workers through advertisement in the past.
C. legislation prohibiting discrimination can't free old workers from age discrimination.
D. the recent proposed congressional legislation is ineffective.
5. The author is __ when he analyzes the age discrimination issue.
A. pessimistic
B. partial
C. objective
D. doubtful
【文章概要】
本文講述了工作中的年齡歧視問題，及就此狀況提出了禁止職場(chǎng)中的年齡歧視的法案。第l段引出話題指出國會(huì)民主黨人提出立法，旨在使歲數(shù)較大的職員在年齡歧視訴訟案中更容易獲勝;第2—3段用數(shù)據(jù)說明，相當(dāng)多年齡歧視案件沒有人提起訴訟，雇傭方的歧視案件也往往不被發(fā)現(xiàn)，并分析其中的原因第4—6段以一個(gè)實(shí)驗(yàn)為例證指出年齡歧視的現(xiàn)象也存在于低級(jí)別的職位上，同時(shí)分析了高失業(yè)率期間年齡歧視案件增加的原因及雇主雇用工
人時(shí)考慮的因素;第7段指出禁止年齡歧視的立法產(chǎn)生的效果并不明顯，分析年齡較大的工人難以找到工作的可能原因：最后一段講到用立法來解決年齡歧視的問題并不是萬能的，最近的提案也可能有其利弊。
【答案解析】
1.[D]因果推斷題。第2段最后一句講到許多年齡歧視案件沒有被發(fā)現(xiàn)，第3段分析了其原因。第3段末句指出“因?yàn)樵V訟費(fèi)遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)超過潛在的利益”，故選D。A在文章首段便提及，但不與題干構(gòu)成因果關(guān)系;第3段指出中層管理者也有可能提起訴訟，故B也錯(cuò);C項(xiàng)文中沒有提到。
2.[B]細(xì)節(jié)判斷題。根據(jù)Boston定位到第4段。該段首句指出年齡歧視起碼在低級(jí)別的職位存在，通過接下來的實(shí)驗(yàn)調(diào)查可知，年齡歧視在招聘過程中很普遍，故選8。該實(shí)驗(yàn)沒有對(duì)男應(yīng)聘者和女應(yīng)聘者進(jìn)行對(duì)比，故A沒有原文依據(jù);文中指出“我’’只是發(fā)出上千份虛假的應(yīng)聘簡(jiǎn)歷，故C錯(cuò)誤;最后一句指出低于50歲的申請(qǐng)人，收到面試電話的幾率比年齡較大的申請(qǐng)人高40%，故D與原文表述不符。
3.[C]細(xì)節(jié)推斷題。根據(jù)high
unemployment定位到第5段最后兩句。根據(jù)最后兩旬可知，高失業(yè)時(shí)期，訴訟機(jī)會(huì)成本低于好景時(shí)的機(jī)會(huì)成本，因此可推斷高失業(yè)期訴訟機(jī)會(huì)成本較低可導(dǎo)致訴訟案件增加，C正確。A、B都沒有提到關(guān)鍵詞cost，D與原文的意思相反，故都排除。
4.[A]細(xì)節(jié)判斷題。由最后一段第l句可知A正確。第l句指出過去的招聘廣告會(huì)詳述年齡要求，但并不能說明所有的雇主都會(huì)通過廣告招聘工人，故8錯(cuò)誤;文中并沒有提到年齡歧視法案是否將年老的工人解救出來，故C沒有原文根據(jù);D與該段最后兩句表述有出入。
5.[C]觀點(diǎn)態(tài)度題。第l段講到年齡歧視情況很多不被發(fā)現(xiàn)，接下來分析原因，講到立法效果不明顯等這些都是事實(shí)及現(xiàn)狀，作者沒有帶自己的主觀色彩，故對(duì)年齡歧視問題的分析是客觀的，C正確。
