 Despite this negative perception of affirmative action beneficiaries, other studies indicate that while the beneficiaries of affirmative action, on average, have a lower educational attainment than their peers, those beneficiaries generally have job performance outcomes that are as good as their peers.In terms of benefits to women, a recently reported 30 year longitudinal study of the effect of affirmative action on hiring found that minority women benefited significantly over the entire 30 years of the study.However, while affirmative action plans had a negative effect on white women during the 1970s and 1980s, there was a positive effect for this group during the 1990s.