No I didn’t mean to suggest that. But I did mean to suggest that it’s not at all obvious that this kind of Schelling style amplification of preferences is something that would be good to do something about. The archetypal example of Schelling style clustering is a net utility win even if a small one.
So in the archetypal Schelling example, everyone would prefer to be at a table with both races, but strongly prefer to NOT be the only one of their race at their table, which led to complete racial segregation which no one was especially keen on...
I thought the archetypal example was where everyone had a mild preference to be with other members of their race (even if just because of somewhat more shared culture) and didn’t personally really care if they weren’t in a mixed group. But I take your point to be that, at least in the gender case, we do have the preference not to be entirely divided by gender.
So yes, I agree that if the effect leads to too much sorting then it could be bad but it seems like a tough empirical question whether we are at a point where the utility gains from more sorting are more or less than the losses.
No I didn’t mean to suggest that. But I did mean to suggest that it’s not at all obvious that this kind of Schelling style amplification of preferences is something that would be good to do something about. The archetypal example of Schelling style clustering is a net utility win even if a small one.
So in the archetypal Schelling example, everyone would prefer to be at a table with both races, but strongly prefer to NOT be the only one of their race at their table, which led to complete racial segregation which no one was especially keen on...
I thought the archetypal example was where everyone had a mild preference to be with other members of their race (even if just because of somewhat more shared culture) and didn’t personally really care if they weren’t in a mixed group. But I take your point to be that, at least in the gender case, we do have the preference not to be entirely divided by gender.
So yes, I agree that if the effect leads to too much sorting then it could be bad but it seems like a tough empirical question whether we are at a point where the utility gains from more sorting are more or less than the losses.