Almost half of young African Americans say that they’ve experienced racial discrimination while looking for a job and while on the job, and one-third of young women of all races say they’ve faced employment-related gender discrimination, according to the Associated Press. From this, one can draw the logical conclusion that black women are probably the most marginalized group in the workplace.
According to a poll taken in the first two weeks of September, 48 percent of African Americans ages 18-30 say they’ve experienced discrimination while looking for a job or at work, which was higher than the responses from all other races and ethnicities. About one-third of Asian Americans and Latinos also said they experienced discrimination at work or while looking for a job, and just 10 percent of whites say they experienced employment-related racism.
The GenForward survey was conducted by the Black Youth Project at the University of Chicago with the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. The survey includes interviews with 501 African Americans, 517 Latinos, 261 Asian Americans and 530 non-Hispanic whites, along with 42 young people of other racial and ethnic backgrounds.
AP reports that the poll is the first of its kind to pay special attention to the voices of young adults of color.
On top of facing discrimination, young blacks are more likely to think that their race has made it more difficult to get ahead economically. Fifty-four percent say that being black makes it harder, the highest among those polled. Thirty-nine percent of Asian Americans and 34 percent of Latinos say that their race or ethnicity has made life harder.
Young whites are the only group more likely to say their race has made life easier, at 31 percent. Interestingly, 53 percent of those polled say that their race has made no difference.
In addition to racism, the GenForward poll also showed that 31 percent of young women say they’ve experienced gender discrimination in looking for a job and in the workplace itself.
Read more about the survey here and at the Associated Press.
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