iso-NEWS - Institut für Sozialforschung und Sozialwirtschaft eV

Ingrid Matthäi: ’Managing Diversity’
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short-term contracts or temporary work to
built up a flexible workforce. Under these
circumstances job applicants have not
only to be able to meet the demands of
the job concerning the expected level of
qualification and skills but they have to be
able to meet the demands on availability,
on working-time flexibility and high performance
as well. Last, but not least, job
applicants have to become marketing
experts themselves to improve their ‚impression
management’ and to demonstrate
a good performance in the interview
situation (Lueger 1993). Especially elder
people often have problems to master
that game of ’impression management’
selling themselves best. Considering these
frames and constraints underlying application
procedures it becomes evident that
individuals have no equal opportunities in
getting access to the internal labour markets
when they are thought of as being
‘different’ or ‘deficient’ and therefore unable
to perform to the usual standards set
by the company and the homogenous
workforce.
The general arguments against the employment
of women, elder ones or migrants
are the following ones. Companies
often hesitate to employ women because
they seem to be more family oriented than
job oriented and therefore less available
than male workers. The picture of elders is
influenced by an expectation of lower
performance, health problems and outdated
qualifications (Koller/Gruber 2001).
Therefore they don’t seem to fulfil the demands
on flexibility. The arguments against
the employment of migrants refer to cultural
differences or language problems.
Employers are reluctant to employ migrants
because of potential integration
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iso-Mitteilungen Nr. 3/August 2004
problems. These group stereotypes or reluctances
lead to a vicious circle of discrimination
that reduces the job opportunities
of these unemployed the longer they
are without a job and it discourages themselves
at last giving up looking for a job
any longer. Figure 1 explains this vicious
circle of structural discrimination exemplary
referring to the situation of the longterm
unemployed.
Labour market experts refer to a second
topic, the so-called ‘alternative role’
(Offe/Hinrichs 1997), that might influence
the recruitment decision as well. Often
there is an unspoken agreement between
workforce, works council and management
to prefer those applicants which ‘fit’
in the organization. That means women,
elder people and migrants have the opportunity
to choose an ‘alternative role’
that is generally accepted in society instead
of being employed. In this view the
alternative role for women seems to be the
traditional household and family role, the
alternative role for unemployed elders is
the option to leave the labour market and
become an early pensioner and the alternative
role for migrants seems to be their
remigration. All these expectations and
implicit assumptions of the employers aggravate
patterns of structural discrimination
that reduce the job opportunities of
people obviously belonging to disadvantaged
groups in the labour market.