Final answer:
Employment discrimination in labor markets involves unequal treatment of individuals with the same qualifications due to their race, gender, or religion, resulting in disparities in pay or job opportunities. Disparate treatment and adverse impact are two key types of employment discrimination, while reasonable accommodation is a legal requirement to support employees with disabilities or religious needs. Institutional discrimination affects groups within societal structures, like historical military policies against minority sexualities.
Step-by-step explanation:
Employment discrimination occurs in the labor market when individuals face unjust or unequal treatment based on their membership in a protected class such as race, gender, or religion. It takes various forms, but in the context of labor markets, it often results in disparities in pay or job opportunities for workers with the same levels of education, experience, and expertise. Two major types of employment discrimination are disparate treatment and adverse impact. Disparate treatment involves an employer treating an individual less favorably because of characteristics related to a protected class. Meanwhile, adverse impact refers to employment practices that may appear neutral but have a discriminatory effect on a protected group.
In the United States, the law also provides for reasonable accommodation, a measure intended to support employees who, because of a disability or religious beliefs, need modifications to their work environment. This principle is part of the broader framework of laws and regulations established to prevent discrimination and promote equivalency in employment opportunities. This legal framework not only covers organized religion followers but also individuals with sincerely held religious, ethical, or moral beliefs.
Institutional discrimination is another form of bias, which might not target individuals directly but is embedded within societal structures, affecting entire groups. Examples of institutional discrimination include policies like the historical "don't ask, don't tell" in the U.S. military, which affected minority sexualities. To combat both individual and institutional discrimination, public policies such as requiring equal pay for equal work, and striving for equal educational outcomes are in place.