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Career discrimination is a form of discrimination based on age, race, gender, religion, national origin, physical or mental disability, sexual orientation, or gender identity by employers, and career discrimination is prevalent in Nigeria in various forms. Gender discrimination is a common social phenomenon in various employment sectors in Nigeria. In politics, very few women of less than 10% are elected into political offices as lawmakers or representatives of their people due to gender bias; Nigerians consider some jobs as exclusively for males and this does not guarantee females equal opportunities to thrive and so many others. The various places and factors that demonstrate career discrimination include: AGE DISCRIMINATION Employers in Nigeria often specify which age bracket they prefer candidates for any job. Any different treatment on the basis that an employee is above the age of 25, 30 or 35 or is old is considered age discrimination, it can be unintentional or deliberate, unconscious or explicit. Age discrimination is often manifested in such organizational practices as limiting other workers from substantive job responsibility or access to job related career development opportunities. The common form of age discrimination in Nigeria is age specification for job seekers, which must be below 25 years and 35 years working experience; which obviously is not attainable. SEX AND GENDER DISCRIMINATION Discrimination based on sex involves denying equal employment opportunity to any individual because of that individual’s sex or based on gender stereotypes, or based on a person’s failure to conform to gender stereotypes. Sex discrimination also includes treating an individual less favorably because of the individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity, or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity. This discrimination might fall into the politics system where it is very easy to single out female politicians because they are hardly given the chance and seen as not qualified for politics, as it is best for men. In addition, this discrimination happens in certain choice of professions like in the field of engineering, which is one area that is exclusively considered a male dominated profession, and nursing, which is considered as female dominated profession.
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RELIGIOUS AND ETHNIC DISCRIMINATION Discrimination on the basis of religion and ethnicity involves denying equal employment opportunity to any person because of that person’s sincerely held religious, ethical or moral beliefs, because that person is perceived to be of a particular ethnicity. An employer must make reasonable accommodations for religious and ethnic beliefs, observances or practices unless doing so would cause undue hardship on the employer. An instance is where a politician from a particular tribe would rather give a managerial post to an uneducated fellow from his tribe than allow a qualified fellow from a different tribe take the position, especially if it is a sensitive position that could affect their collective will as a people. Career discrimination is not peculiar to any particular nation as it is a common social issue in all parts of the world. Those who discriminate have personal or group biases against others, either consciously or unconsciously. Religion and ethnicity are very strong factors for career discrimination in Nigeria, even though the government denies the existence of such determiners for security and unity purposes. The government itself has put down certain structures or policies that encourage discrimination, such as the age limitations usually placed on job applicants. For any country to move ahead in development by harnessing all its human potentials, discrimination in areas of career must be curtailed to its minimum. Featured image Source: Connect Nigeria
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