Are affirmative action hires less qualified? Evidence from employer-employee data on new hires

We use microlevel data on employers and employees from a sample of establis hments in four major metropolitan areas in the United States to investigate whether Affirmative Action leads to the hiring of minority or female emplo yees who are less qualified. Our measures of qualifications include the edu cational attainment of the workers hired and a variety of outcome measures related to worker performance on the job. We find evidence of lower educati onal qualifications among women and minorities hired under Affirmative Acti on. However, we do not find evidence of weaker job performance among most g roups of minority and female Affirmative Action hires.