on performance or upon per formance potential. Lundberg, & Startz (1983) found that firms would enjoy increased profitability as a result of the elimina tion of compensation differentials based upon sex or upon racial or ethnic background. Their study assumed, however, that the distribution of abilities and motivations to learn, knowledge bases, and skill levels were similar in all racial and ethnic groups, and in both men and women, and that employ ment policies based upon performance or potential performance would result in an integrated workforce, in which a firm would acquire and retain only the most efficient workers. In the everyday world, however, such an assumption is seldom valid. Thus, employers are tempted to continue practices which have the effect of defeating affirmative action goals.
THE STATUS OF EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY, AND
COMPLIANCE WITH AFFIRMATIVE ACTION GOALS
The demographics of the American workforce changed drama tically between the 1960s and the 1990s, and, at the beginning 3 of the 1990s continues to change. The general trend has been for the workforce in the United States to becoming older, and to include higher proportions of racial and ethnic minorities, and women.The Anglo labor participation (employment) rate in 1987 was 60.3 percent, while the participation rate for His
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