Affirmative Action in Education and Public Employment: A Global Systematic Review (2015-2025)

This review paper synthesises scholarship published between 2015 and 2025, drawing on 96 studies indexed through Web of Science and Scopus across education, sociology, law, public policy, economics, and allied disciplines. Using a PRISMA-guided systematic review and bibliometric approach, the study examines the evolving global discourse on affirmative action across higher education and public employment systems. The review maps conceptual distinctions between equality and equity, compares policy instruments and governance frameworks across the United States, Brazil, India, South Africa, Malaysia, Nigeria, China, and selected European contexts, and analyses methodological trends spanning quasi-experimental, qualitative, ethnographic, bibliometric, and mixed-methods designs. Bibliometric visualisations, including thematic maps, keyword co-occurrence networks, analyses of country scientific production, and collaboration mapping, reveal major thematic clusters centred on diversity and inclusion, social justice and redistribution, public employment and labour-market mobility, intersectionality, and institutional governance. The findings indicate that well-designed affirmative action policies, when supported by transparent eligibility criteria, academic and financial assistance, inclusive institutional cultures, and accountability mechanisms, significantly enhance educational access, representation, public sector participation, and long-term socio-economic mobility for historically marginalized groups without systematic evidence of academic decline. At the same time, evolving legal and political environments, particularly in the United States and Europe, are encouraging shifts toward race-neutral or socioeconomically based alternatives whose equity outcomes remain uneven and require continuous evaluation. The review further demonstrates that affirmative action is most effective when educational inclusion is linked with employment opportunities, institutional transformation, and broader capability-enhancing frameworks. By integrating educational and employment perspectives within a comparative global framework, this study contributes a cross-sectoral understanding of affirmative action as a multidimensional instrument of equity, inclusion, and social transformation.