WASHINGTON -- Minorities and women made signficant gains in employment during the 1970s due largely to affirmative action programs and the guidelines should be continued, despite criticism from the Reagan administration, a study said Sunday.
The study found, for example, that blacks' share of the job market increased by 15 percent during the decade with the majority of those jobs in higher paying categories. Women increased their share in the job market by 19 percent, the report said. Hispanics share of the market jumped 50 percent.
The 100-page study, 'A Decade of New Opportunity: Affirmative Action in the 1970s,' was written by Herbert Hammerman, a private consultant and former staff member of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and was published by the Washington-based Potomac Institute, an independent research organization.
'Ironically, this positive evidence comes at a time when the critics of affirmative action -- including the president, the attorney general, and other high government officials -- are waging a campaign to strip the program of basic elements,' said Harold C. Fleming, president of the Potomac Institute.
The EEOC, for example, decided this year to emphasize investigation of individual discrimination complaints rather than widespread 'pattern and practice' instances of discrimination.
In addition, the Justice Department is entering court cases opposing judicially-ordered remedies to implement affirmative action programs.
Fleming conceded employment gains by minorities and women 'have been uneven, and in most areas parity is still remote.
'But the trend is unmistakably in the direction of equal opportunity, particularly in the higher positions that were for so long closed to the traditional victims of discrimination, he said.
'To the extent that it has been been successful, therefore, its achievements have been made in the face of the countervailing effect of poverty, stagflation and an increasing number of female householder families,' he said.
According to the report:
-Blacks' overall share of the job market rose from 10.1 percent in 1970 to 11.6 percent in 1980, an increase of 15 percent with the increase concentrated in higher paid jobs. Officials and managers rose from 1.9 percent to 4 percent, up 104 percent in 10 years while the number of black professionals rose from 2.3 percent to 4.3 percent, an increase of 72 percent.
-Women's share of the job market rose from 34.4 percent to 41 percent, an increase of 19 percent. The biggest increases were in the top three white collar categories of officials and managers, professionals and technicians.
-Hispanics overall share jumped from 3.6 percnt to 5.4 percent, an icnrease of 50 percent.
Echoing a study released last summer by the Labor Department, the report also said that businesses welcome affirmative action policies because of a positive correlation between the programs and performance.
Fleming said affirmative action 'has moved our society measurably closer to the democratic goal of equal opportunity.'
'The gap remaining,' he says, 'is too wide to justify relaxing ... and abandoning methods of proved effectiveness.'
