What should we make of the ethnic ‘pay gap’?

A protester at an equal pay demo (Getty images)

If one group earns more and enjoys better workplace success than another, does that mean the less successful group is being discriminated against? There might be individual examples of discrimination but I’m not convinced this is proof of institutional discrimination.

Take career success: the underlying assumption is that a given ethnic group will have all the qualities that make for success in occupations such as medicine, law, the civil service, and more. If we focus on one narrow criterion, university attendance, then in the absence of discrimination we should expect an equal proportion of whites and non-whites to go to university. Universities whose racial composition is not equal find themselves accused of institutional racism, structural racism and even racism pure and simple.

Thomas Sowell, a black American economist, has done more than anyone to show the flaws in this type of reasoning. Here are two striking examples from the many that he offers.

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