Meritocracy Paradox

What is Meritocracy Paradox?

Meritocracy: The term ‘Meritocracy’ was coined by Michael Young in 1958 as a dystopian satire. It refers to a social system, society, or organisation where people achieve success or power based on their abilities, not because of their money or social position. 

Meritocracy Paradox: The Meritocracy Paradox emerged from research by E. Castilla & S. Bernard, who empirically tested the theoretical argument that when an organisational culture promotes meritocracy, managers in those organisations inadvertently show greater bias in favour of men over equally performing women. The study found that women were underscored in their performance evaluations, negatively impacting their rewards in terms of career outcomes. Given that meritocracy removes self-scrutiny and places decision-making in the hands of individual managers, performance assessments become vulnerable to individual biases. Ultimately, this creates an uneven and unregulated playing field, leading to disproportionate outcomes in the workplace.