Equal Employment Opportunity

This report provides information on employment practices at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). GAO evaluates NIH's progress in meeting federal equal employment opportunity requirements concerning the job placement and advancement of women and minorities. GAO compares the representation of women and minorities in NIH's workforce at the end of fiscal years 1984 and 1993. GAO also compares the representation of women and minorities at different levels in key jobs at the same two points in time. Finally, GAO compares 1983 personnel data for key jobs at NIH to equal employment opportunity profiles of similar occupations in the civilian labor force.

GAO found that: (1) from fiscal year (FY) 1984 through FY 1993, the overall representation of minorities and women in the NIH white-collar workforce remained stable at about 74 percent; (2) the representation of Caucasian women and men and African-American men decreased between FY 1984 and FY 1993, while the representation of all other EEO groups increased; (3) the number of women in key NIH jobs increased significantly between FY 1983 and FY 1984; (4) except for African-American and Native American men, the representation of all minority groups and women increased by 4 percent, while Caucasian men continued to hold a higher proportion of upper-level NIH jobs; (5) because of their misinterpretation of EEO directives and other programs, NIH officials tended to hire mainly Caucasian women to satisfy EEO requirements; (6) most of the EEO groups at NIH were underrepresented in 1993 when compared to similar occupations in the private sector; and (7) Asian and Caucasian men and Hispanics were underrepresented in more occupations than other EEO groups.