What does affirmative action do?

The authors use data from a survey of employers to investigate how Affirmat ive Action in recruiting and hiring influences hiring practices, personnel policies, and ultimately employment outcomes. They find that Affirmative Ac tion increases the number of recruitment and screening practices used by em ployers, raises employers' willingness to hire stigmatized applicants, incr eases the number of minority or female applicants as well as employees, and increases employers' tendencies to provide training and formally evaluate employees. When Affirmative Action is used in recruiting, it generally does not lead to lower credentials or performance of women and minorities hired . When it is also used in hiring, it yields minority employees whose creden tials are somewhat weaker, though performance generally is not. Overall, th e more intensive search, evaluation, and training that accompany Affirmativ e Action appear to offset any tendencies of the policy to lead to hiring of less-qualified or less-productive women and minorities.