Race, sex, and performance ratings in the federal service

Has affirmative action promoted women and minorities to levels where they perform less well than their white male counterparts! Do women and minorities have to perform better to achieve the same pay? Can racial and sexual differences in performance ratings, whether legitimate or discriminatory, help explain why white men continue to earn more than other apparently comparable employees? Using a 1 percent sample of federal personnel records for the 1990s, I examined racial and sexual differences in performance ratings among employees in similar positions and among comparably educated and experienced employees. Women, especially white women, typically received higher ratings than white men at the same grades in the same agencies Minorities, however had somewhat worse chances than nonminorities of receiving ''outstanding'' ratings and were more likely to receive merely ''fully successful'' ratings.