In a perfectly free and open market economy, the type of employer—government or private-sh
In addition, both Fuchs and Sanborn have suggested that the effect of discrimination by consumers on the earnings of self-employed women may be greater than the effect of either government or private employer discrimination on the earnings of women employees. To test this hypothesis, Brown selected a large sample of white male and female workers from the 1970 Census and divided them into three categories: private employees, government employees, and self-employed. (Black workers were excluded from the sample to avoid picking up earnings differentials that were the result of racial disparities.) Brown's research design controlled for education, labor force participation, mobility, motivation, and age in order to eliminate these factors as explanations of the study's results. Brown's results suggest that men and women are not treated the same by employers and consumers. For men, self-employment is the highest earnings category, with private employment next, and government lowest. For women, this order is reversed.
One can infer from Brown's results that consumers discriminate against self-employed women. In addition, self-employed women may have more difficulty than men in getting good employees and may encounter discrimination from suppliers and from financial institutions.
Brown's results are clearly consistent with Fuchs's argument that discrimination by consumers has a greater impact on the earnings of women than does discrimination by either government or private employers. Also, the fact that women do better working for government than for private employers implies that private employers axe discriminating against women. The results do not prove that government does not discriminate against women. They do, however, demonstrate that if government is discriminating against women, its discrimination is not having as much effect on women's earnings as is discrimination in the private sector.
The passage mentions all of the following as difficulties that self-employed women may encounter EXCEPT______.
A.discrimination from consumers
B.discrimination from financial institutions
C.problems in obtaining good employees
D.problems in obtaining government assistance