Equal opportunity

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Equal Opportunity is a descriptive term for an approach intended to give equal access to an environment or benefits, such as education, employment, health care, or social welfare to all, often with emphasis on members of various social groups who historically suffered from discrimination. Some protected groups include gender, race, or religion. Equal opportunity practices include an organizations' implementation of personnel practices to ensure equality in the employment process. Equal opportunity also applies to equality in housing and public accommodations.In developing countries, equal opportunity is provided by creating jobs accessible to poor people. Economic studies suggest that this is achieved by reducing barriers to entry and allowing entrepreneurial activity.

EEO programs usually work together with affirmative action. In the U.S., The federal government and various state and local governments sometimes institute affirmative action in terms of hiring and government contracting with the attempt to overcome alleged historical discrimination against protected groups. There are three different forms of affirmative action, 1) in education; 2) in government contracting and 3) in personnel practices. In the employment context, not all employers are required to implement an affirmative action program, generally government entities and federal contractors. Where the employer is required to have an affirmative action program in employment, the organization must compare the incumbency of females and minorities performing specific jobs to the availability of those groups in the recruitment area where the employer finds its employees. Where the employment incumbency in that job group is less than 80% of the availability of that group, the organization must establish an affirmative action goal. Thereafter, when there is a job opening for that particular job group, the organization must take Good Faith Efforts to recruit qualified minorities and females or whatever group is underutilized.

The organization accomplishes this by advertising the job with organizations who might be able to refer qualified minorities and or females applicants. However, once the applicants apply, in theory the organization is required to select the most qualified candidate and cannot make employment decisions based on race or sex even where there is an affirmative action goal.

These methods of providing equal opportunity are often a subject of controversy, as is the means by which to measure the success or failure of equal opportunity policies. Critics argue that it can be difficult, if not impossible, to determine if in the end race or gender was used as a final consideration for employment to meet a goal, resulting in a qualified applicant potentially being discriminated against solely because of their race or gender.

Opportunity itself is often difficult - if not impossible - to accurately measure. Thus, in practice, equal opportunity is said to exist when people with similar abilities reach similar results after doing a similar amount of work. In other words, equal opportunity is measured by the degree of equality of outcome that it generates. Indeed, equal opportunity and equality of outcome are often seen as complementary. For example, as long as inequalities can be passed form one generation to another through gifts and wealth inheritance, it is unclear that equality of opportunity for children can be achieved without greater equality of outcome for parents.

M/F/D/V, meaning Male/Female/Disabled/Veteran, is often appended to job openings to underline that you are an equal opportunity employer.

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