Abstract
Credentialism refers to the practice of hiring or promoting applicants on the basis of their educational qualifications. In this paper, we argue that this can amount to wrongful discrimination against the less qualified. A standard way to defend credentialism appeals to the fact that it minimizes the costs of production. We argue that this argument has unacceptable implications in some cases involving disability- and gender-based discrimination. We claim that, once we appropriately revise this argument, credentialism is revealed to be similarly wrongfully discriminatory. We then consider two objections and draw some preliminary lessons for policymaking.
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11 November 2022
A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10892-022-09412-7
Notes
For example, Michael Sandel asserts, without argument, that ‘There is nothing wrong with hiring people based on merit. In fact, it is generally the right thing to do’ (2020: 33). In this paper, we avoid referring to meritocracy, since this term is used in many different ways, which can invite confusion.
We set aside other ways in which to defend such procedures, such as by appeal to the idea that respect for the applicants’ agency requires that an employer hire or promote the individual who would perform best in the role. For defences of this view, see Mason (2006: 56–64) and Sher (1987). For responses, see Arneson (1999), Clayton (2012) and Segall (2012).
Of course, this implies nothing about the distribution of rewards. Moreover, there are complications about how to understand the demands of productivity, but we set these aside for the sake of ease. For discussion, see Daniels (1978).
More broadly, if other restaurants are required to follow suit and spend more resources on training as well, the business environment of that society will become more costly and therefore less friendly to new businesses. This may lead to lower economic growth, as well as to a lower supply of jobs, which would disproportionately affect the least advantaged.
For discussion of some of the relevant empirics, see Tholen (2017).
For discussion, see Kymlicka (2001: 379–380). It is significant that many countries have now abolished such requirements, precisely because they are indirectly discriminatory.
We note that, although the European Court of Justice has found the height requirement in Greece to amount to indirect discrimination, the requirement is still in place. We also note that Hong Kong now has a different minimum height requirement for women (1.52 m), but this does not have any implications for our argument here.
In the long run, we might expect to recover some or all of these costs by recruiting from a pool that includes women who require less training to do the redesigned jobs. If so, then the trade-off may not be as acute as we suggest here (Mill 1965–1991: 326–328; Swift and Marshall 1997: 42). Though we are sympathetic to this view, it is worth reiterating that a commitment to gender justice would require us to bear some costs even if we were sure that we could not recover all of these.
Brian Barry (1973: 86) criticizes John Rawls’s justice as fairness for similar reasons.
As in the case of women’s inclusion (see Fn. 9), it might be true that, in the long-run, on-the-job training schemes turn out to be more efficient than a system of credentialism. However, this depends on empirical contingencies. Where this is the case, we have additional reasons to object to credentialism. Indeed, Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo note that, in states with poor quality education systems (e.g. in India), academic credentials are often an unreliable guide to an individual’s future economic performance in a given position. On efficiency grounds, they advocate for alternative routes into the labour market for those with few credentials (Banerjee and Duflo 2011: Chap. 4).
For example, Thomas Scanlon claims that a preference for hiring Ivy League graduates is not bigoted, while a preference for hiring candidates of a specific race or gender is (2008: 73).
We assume that the indirect discrimination that Amy suffers is morally wrongful because it disadvantages her, and that laws that prevent such indirect discrimination are justified in virtue of this (Lippert-Rasmussen 2013: Chaps. 2 and 6). However, we recognize that this claim is controversial (Arneson 2013: 87–113).
It should go without saying that this is not the case for individuals with milder cognitive disabilities, which do not prevent them from developing a number of skills that are valuable in a great range of jobs.
To be sure, some individuals might choose to refrain from pursuing higher education even if they have received a just socialization and fair access to education. The existence of these individuals does not prove, however, that credentialism is permissible, since it would disproportionately affect those who have not received a just socialization and since it would not be wise to allow employers to assess the socialization of each applicant.
We explore related questions in Frustration at Work: The Case for Subsidizing Career Switching, unpublished manuscript.
We do not maintain that whenever an individual’s choice is attributable to unfair upbringing or socialization, that is sufficient to conclude that we should not hold them responsible for that choice. However, when this is the case, we do think that there is a presumption in favour of changing the social and economic structures that lead to such outcomes. For instance, let us consider a young woman who is raised continuously hearing from her family that higher education is simply not for women, and that women belong only within the family home. If that woman ends up choosing not to attend university, despite that option being formally available to her, we should be suspect of the claim that she should rightly be deprived of the chance to join the labour force later because she should be held responsible for her choice. Yet it is impossible and undesirable fully to prevent this problem by intervening in the family and by policing the exact way in which children are brought up. For that reason, we claim, we should design labour markets in more inclusive ways. Still, we stress again that this does not imply that we should never hold anyone responsible for an act that is causally attributable to their upbringing or socialisation.
Why think that we should have a list of protected characteristics in the first place? Why must we rule out wrongful indirect discrimination against those with an odd number of eyelashes, for example? Some critics contend that this is a mistake (Thomsen 2013). Our argument in this section is compatible with this critical outlook, but it does not presuppose it.
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Acknowledgements
Work on this article received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program under Marie Skłodowska-Curie Grant Agreement 890434. For feedback, we thank audiences at Aarhus University and Queen’s University, as well as David Axelsen, Paul Billingham, Clare Burgum, Paula Casal, Shuk Ying Chan, Matthew Clayton, Brigid Evans, Kerah Gordon-Solmon, Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen, Andrew Lister, Ida Lübben, Michael Luoma, Andy Mason, Francesca Minerva, Nici Mulkeen, Søren Flinch Midtgaard, and Andrew Williams. Special thanks to Frej Klem Thomsen who provided excellent commentary on a prior version of this paper.
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Parr, T., Theofilopoulou, A. Against Credentialism. J Ethics 26, 639–659 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10892-022-09408-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10892-022-09408-3