Marc Bendick Jr. (born August 20, 1946) is a United States economist and interdisciplinary social scientist who conducts and applies research concerning public policy issues of employment, discrimination, poverty, and social and economic inequality.
Early life and education Bendick was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut. He graduated as a Regents' Scholar from the University of California, Berkeley in 1968, where he studied economics and social psychology. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1975, where he was affiliated with the Institute for Research on Poverty.https://www.irp.wisc.edu; M. Bendick, Jr., "Designing Circuit-Breaker Property Tax Relief", National Tax Journal 27 (March 1974), pp. 19-28
Academic career His work also reflects the systems analysis approach developed in the U.S. Defense Department under Robert McNamara,E.S. Quade & W. I Boucher (eds.), Systems Analysis and Policy Planning, Applications in Defense (New York: Elsevier, 1968) to which he was exposed as an operations research analyst in the aerospace industry from 1968 to 1970. His thinking has been further influenced by long-time collaboration with Mary Lou Egan, Ph.D., a business school professor, researcher and consultant on business strategy, international business, and economic development.
From 1975 to 1984, Bendick was a senior researcher and program manager at the non-profit Urban Institute. From 1984 to 2023, he was a co-principal in Bendick and Egan Economic Consultants, Inc.
Research and its impact Bendick's more than 140 research publications have been cited in other scholarly work, both in the US and internationally, more than 5,000 times.Online search with Google Scholar, academia.edu, and other search engines, February 2024. Primarily, it concerns "mid-level theory," in which empirical findings are integrated with (and often motivate) academic theoryR.K. Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure (New York: Free Press, 1968). and, within economics, on the concept of X-inefficiency rather than more mainstream micro-economic concerns. Accordingly, this work has been as frequently included in university syllabi in applied fields such as public policy, business, law, social work, education, and management as in academic fields such as economics, sociology, and psychology. As such, it has contributed to the growing movement for evidence-based policy in multiple social policy fields.
The majority of these publications concern improvement in employment opportunities for workers traditionally disfavored in the mainstream American labor market. This work often involves developing innovative quantitative measures of employment discrimination, including: applying situation testing (also called discrimination audit studies) to hiring;F. Cherry & M. Bendick, Jr., "Making It Count: Discrimination Auditing and the Activist Scholar Tradition," in S.M. Gaddis (ed), Audit Studies: Behind the Scene with Theory, Methods, and Nuance (Springer, 2018); M. Bendick, Jr. & Elias Cohn, "Race Discrimination and Segregation in Manufacturing Jobs: Evidence from Matched Pair Testing of Staffing Agencies" Social Science Journal (2021); M. Bendick, Jr., R. Rodriguez, & S. Jayaraman, "Employment Discrimination in Upscale Restaurants: Evidence from Paired Comparison Testing," Social Science Journal 47 (2010), pp. 802-818; M. Bendick, Jr., & A. Nunes, "Developing the Research Base for Controlling Bias in Hiring," Journal of Social Issues 68 (2012), pp. 238-263; M. Bendick, Jr., "Adding Testing to the Nation's Portfolio of Information on Employment Discrimination," in M. Fix & M. Turner (eds.), A National Report Card on Discrimination in America: The Role of Testing (Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press, 1999), pp. 47-68. benchmarking firms' employment patterns against those of peer firms;M. Bendick, Jr., "Setting Industry-Level Priorities for EEOC Enforcement," Testimony, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Hearings on the Strategic Enforcement Plan (2012); A. Blumrosen, M. Bendick Jr., et al, Employment Discrimination Against Women and Minorities in Georgia (Rutgers Law School, 1999); M. Bendick, Jr. & M. L. Egan, Research Perspectives on Race and Employment in the Advertising Industry (Washington: The Madison Avenue Project and the NAACP, 2009); M. Bendick, Jr., "Using EEO-1 Data to Analyze Allegations of Employment Discrimination" (Presentation, Annual National Meeting of the American Bar Association, 2000). distinguishing voluntary and involuntary occupational segregation;A. Hegewisch, M. Bendick, Jr., B. Gault & H. Hartmann, Pathways to Equity, Narrowing the Wage Gap by Improving Women’s Access to Good Middle-Skill Jobs (Washington: Institute for Women’s Policy Research, 2016); M. Bendick, Jr. et al., The Availability of Women, Racial Minorities, and Hispanics for On-Site Construction Employment (Washington: U.S. Department of Labor, 2011) quantifying wage discrimination;National Research Council, Collecting Compensation Data from Employers (Washington: National Academies Press, 2012); M. L. Egan, M. Bendick, Jr., & J. Miller, "U.S. Firms’ Evaluation of Employee Qualifications in International Business Careers," International Journal of Human Resource Management 13 (February 2002), pp. 76-88. and identifying conscious and unconscious bias in employers’ organizational culture.M.L. Egan & M. Bendick, Jr., "Are You Ready to Recruit?" Employee Relations Today (July 2018); The Great Service Divide: Occupational Segregation and Inequality in the New York City Restaurant Industry (New York: Restaurant Opportunity Center, 2009); M. Bendick, Jr., "A Fair Shake," Fire Chief (April 2008), pp. 36-40; M. Bendick, Jr. & M. L. Egan, "Manage Employer Inclusion, Not Workforce Diversity!" Presentation, Society for Human Resource Management Annual Diversity Conference, October 2008; M. L. Egan, M. Bendick, Jr., & J. Miller, Enhancing Inclusion at the World Bank Group (Washington: World Bank Group, 2003); M. Bendick, Jr., M. L. Egan, & S. Lofhjelm, "Diversity Training: From Anti-Discrimination Compliance to Organization Development," Human Resource Planning 24 (2, 2001), pp.10-25; M. Bendick, Jr., "Changing Workplace Cultures to Reduce Employment Discrimination," Presentation, Conference on Low Wage Workers in the New Economy, Washington, May 2000; P. Robertson, A. Blumrosen, & M. Bendick, Jr., State of Michigan Equal Opportunity Review (Lansing, MI: Civil Service Commission of the State of Michigan, 1996).
This documentation of the continuing prevalence of employment discrimination in the American workplace in the 21st Century has been frequently cited as a factual predicate for research by others, including on emerging topics such as bias in algorithmic- and artificial intelligence-based screening of job applications.For example, A. Gonzalez & L. Rampino, "A Design Perspective on How to Tackle Gender Biases When Developing AI-Driven Systems, "AI and Ethics 2 (2024); M. Raghavan et al., "Mitigating Bias in Algorithmic Hiring: Evaluating Claims and Practices," Proceedings of Association of Computing Machinery 2020 Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency. Equally, it has been widely cited by news media and policy advocates in debates on anti-discrimination strategies including government-mandated affirmative actionFor example, J. Wicks-Lim, Wal-Mart Makes the Case for Affirmative Action," Dollars and Sense (September/October 2011); T. Vesco et al., "Racism, Causal Explanations, and Affirmative Action," Political Psychology: New Explorations (Taylor and Francis, 2017). and employers' initiatives to promote workforce diversity, equity, and inclusion.R. Hays-Thomas, Managing Workplace Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (Routledge, 2022); M. Bell & J. Leopold, Diversity in Organization (Cengage, 2022). Because it linked organizational policies and practices and individual psychological processes directly to biased workplace outcomes, this research has illuminated processes that economic analyses of discrimination had traditionally left an unexamined "black box"A. Andersson & B. Andersson, "Inside and Outside the Black Box: Organizational Interdepedencies", Journal of Regional Science (November 2018) and contributed to the emerging sub-discipline of behavioral economics.
In evaluating anti-poverty strategies in the United States, Bendick's research has emphasized the complementarities, rather than the substitutability, between public programs and private market-based alternatives. It thus defined common ground between policies advocated by political liberals (e.g., the War on Poverty) and private market-based alternatives championed by political conservatives (e.g., the Reagan Administration in the US in the 1980s and the Tea Party Movement in the US in the early 21st Century).M. Bendick, Jr., "Linking Learning and Earning", Economic Development Quarterly 10 (August 1996), pp. 217-223; M. Bendick, Jr. & M.L. Egan, "Employee Ownership and Participation Enhance Economic Development in Low-Income Communities", Journal of Community Practice 2 (Winter 1995), pp. 61-85; M. Bendick, Jr. & M. L. Egan, "Linking Business Development and Community Development in Inner Cities," Journal of Planning Literature 8 (August 1993), pp. 3-19; M. Bendick, Jr., & D. Rasmussen, "Enterprise Zones and Inner City Economic Revitalization." in Reagan and the Cities (Urban Institute Press, 1986), pp. 97-130; M. Bendick, Jr., "Private Sector Initiatives or Public Private Partnerships?" in L. Salomon & M. Lund (eds.), The Reagan Presidency and the Governing of America (Washington: Urban Institute Press, 1985), pp. 455-479; M. Bendick, Jr., "The Role of Public Programs and Private Markets in Reemploying Displaced Workers," Policy Studies Review 2 (May 1983), pp. 715-733; M. Bendick, Jr., "Employment, Training, and Economic Development," in The Reagan Experiment (Washington: Urban Institute Press, 1982), pp. 247-269. This research typically identified best practices to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of both approaches.M. Bendick, Jr., "Quality Control in a Federal-State Public Assistance Program," Administration in Social Work (Spring 1980); M. Bendick, Jr. et al, Toward Efficiency and Effectiveness in the WIC Delivery System (Urban Institute, 1976); M. Bendick, Jr., "Vouchers vs. Income vs. Services: An American Experiment in Housing Policy," Journal of Social Policy (July 1982); M. Bendick, Jr., "Designing an Effective Program for Dislocated Workers," Testimony, Committee on Ways and Means, U.S. House of Representatives, April 30, 1992; M. Bendick, Jr. "The Croson Decision Mandates that Set aside Programs be Tools of Business Development," George Mason University Civil Rights Law Journal 1 (Spring 1990), pp. 87-104; M. Bendick, Jr., "Cost-Effective Actions for Reducing AFDC Eligibility and Payment Errors," Testimony, Committee on Government Operations, U.S. House of Representatives, October 1977; M. Bendick, Jr., "Research Evidence on the Cost-Effectiveness of the Job Corps," Testimony, Committee on Government Operations, U.S. House of Representatives, May 23, 1985; M. Bendick, Jr., "Matching Workers and Job Opportunities: What Role for the Federal-State Employment Service?" in D. Bawden and F. Skidmore (eds.), Rethinking Employment Policy (Washington: Urban Institute Press, 1989).