【经济学人】一份不敢在大选前发布的报告丨2017.02.04丨总第815期

特别提醒

因个别读者投诉，“考研英语时事阅读”暂停留言功能至2017.03.24.期间本公众号内容将在“考研英语时事阅读”和“ 英语微风尚 ”同步推送，留言截图打卡请移步“ 英语微风尚 ”

GIVEN the long history of making racial slurs about the efforts of some workers, any study casting black and Hispanic men as lazier than whites and Asians is sure to court controversy . A provocative new working paper by economists Daniel Hamermesh, Katie Genadek and Michael Burda sticks a tentative toe into these murky waters. They suggest that America’s well-documented racial wage gap is overstated by 10% because minorities, especially men, spend larger portions of their workdays not actually working. After rejecting a number of plausible explanations for why this might be, the authors finally attribute the discrepancy to unexplained “cultural differences”.

长期以来，与员工工作效率有关的种族歧视争议屡见不鲜。宣称黑人和拉丁裔人比白人和亚洲人更懒散的研究结果一定会引发口水战，而由经济学家Daniel Hamermesh、Katie Genadek和Michael Burda提交的一份新论文则在这潭浑水中掀起了又一轮风波。他们声称，在美国，有证据支持的种族薪资差距数据被夸大了10%，其原因是少数族裔员工，尤其是其中的男性员工在工作时间内存在更多的偷懒现象。在排除了一系列看似可能的原因后，论文作者最终将这种差距归结为原因不明的“文化差异”。

• Racial slur 种族歧视

• Controversy n. 争论；论战；辩论

• Discrepancy n. 不符；矛盾

Acutely aware of the sensitivity of these findings, the professors delayed publication until after the presidential election. “I knew full well that Trump and his minions would use it as a propaganda piece,” says Mr Hamermesh, a colourful and respected labour economist. The paper may yet be seized on by those who are keen to root out “political correctness” and are perennially unhappy with current anti-discrimination laws.

三名教授们深知这一研究结果过于敏感，所以他们选择在美国总统大选结束之后才对外公布。Hamermesh先生是一位备受尊敬的劳动经济学家，同时他自己也属于有色人种。他表示：“我非常清楚特朗普和他的手下会借此进行宣传。”这篇论文可能会被一些试图推翻“政治正确性”以及对目前的反歧视法令始终持反对态度的人士所利用。

• Acutely adv. 尖锐地；剧烈地

• Propaganda n. 宣传

• Perennially adv. 永久地

The study’s method is straightforward. The data come from nearly 36,000 “daily diaries”, self-reporting on how Americans spent their working hours, collected from 2003 to 2012. Relying on the assumption that workers are equally honest in admitting sloth , the authors calculate the fraction of time spent not working while on the job—spent relaxing or eating, say—and find that it varies by race to a small but statistically significant degree. The gap remains, albeit in weaker form, even with the addition of extensive controls for geography, industry and union status, among others. Non-white male workers spend an additional 1.1% of the day not working while on the job, or an extra five minutes per day. Assuming their controls are adequate, that would still leave 90% of the wage difference between white workers and ethnic minorities, which was recently estimated to be 14%, unexplained. This could conceivably be the product of discrimination, or of something else.

研究采用的方法简单直接。数据来自2003-2012年的近36000份“日常日记”，日记的作者们描述了美国人如何支配日常工作时间。在假定员工们都同样诚实地承认偷懒的前提下，研究人员计算了员工在工作时间内未工作（休息或吃零食）的时间占比，其结果是，不同人种的偷懒时间存在差异，其数值不大却具有统计学意义。即使加入地理位置、行业和工会状况等各种控制条件的制约，差距会变小但却依然存在。非白种人的男性员工每天在工作时间内的偷懒时间要长出1.1%，相当于每天多出5分钟。假设他们的控制条件相同，那么白种人员工和少数族裔之间工资差距（最近的估计结果是14%）剩余的九成仍然原因未知。这一结论明显会被当作种族歧视的范例，或者是出于其他目的。

• Sloth n. 怠惰，懒惰；树懒

• Albeit conj. 虽然；即使

• Conceivably adv. 令人信服地；可相信地

Digging out the cause of this curious gap remains hazardous. Worse treatment by managers of minority workers may itself encourage slacking, says Philip Cohen, a sociologist at the University of Maryland. The authors argue that this point is moot , since self-employed minority workers show similar behaviour, but the difference is not statistically significant. A recent experimental approach, in which cashiers in French grocers ’ shops were randomly assigned to more- or less-biased managers, saw greater absences and more sluggish scanning when working under the unfair bosses. It found that eliminating manager bias would increase time spent at work by minorities by an estimated 2.5%.

深究这一奇怪差距的原因可能有些冒险。马里兰大学的社会学家Philip Cohen觉得，管理者对少数族裔员工的态度越恶劣，员工的消极怠工情况就会越严重。而论文作者则表示这种说法有待考证，因为个体经营的少数族裔人员也表现出类似的行为，只不过差别微小至可以忽略。一项最近开展的实验将法国零售商店的店员随机分配至存在不同程度偏见的管理者手下工作，其结果是：在不公正领导者手下工作的店员更容易缺席或怠工。根据估算，如果管理人员不存在偏颇现象，员工的实际工作时间将延长2.5%。

• Moot adj. 无实际意义的；未决议的

• Grocer n. 杂货店；食品商

• Sluggish：a. 懒惰的；迟钝的

Uncomfortable though the topic may be, the authors have attempted a rigorous analysis. Denunciations came quickly, however. Within hours of publication, Mr Hamermesh received vitriolic messages and was labelled a racist in an online forum popular among economists. Mr Hamermesh, an avowed progressive , who refers to Donald Trump only by amusing nicknames and resigned from a post at the University of Texas over a state law permitting the open carrying of firearms, finds this unfair. （读者试译） He notes that Americans work too much. His preferred solution would not be for some groups to work more, but for others to work less.

虽然论题本身会令人稍觉不安，但论文作者的本意是进行严密的学术分析。不过，谴责之声接踵而至。文章发表后仅仅几个小时，Hamermesh先生便收到了各种言辞尖刻的来信，而且在一个经济学家云集的在线论坛上，他被打上了“种族主义者”的标签。 （期待您的翻译，明天会有针对这句话的长难句解析哟~） 而且美国人民工作负担过重。他建议的解决方案并非让某些人承担更多的工作，而是减轻其他人的工作。

• Rigorous：a. 严格的，严密的

• Denunciation n. 谴责，斥责；告发

• Vitriolic adj. 硫酸的；刻薄的