mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

How Do Fair Decisions Fare in Long-term Qualification?

arXiv 2010.11300 ↗First posted 21 Oct 2020cs.LG cs.CYcited by 60

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Abstract (arXiv)

Although many fairness criteria have been proposed for decision making, their long-term impact on the well-being of a population remains unclear. In this work, we study the dynamics of population qualification and algorithmic decisions under a partially observed Markov decision problem setting. By characterizing the equilibrium of such dynamics, we analyze the long-term impact of static fairness constraints on the equality and improvement of group well-being. Our results show that static fairness constraints can either promote equality or exacerbate disparity depending on the driving factor of qualification transitions and the effect of sensitive attributes on feature distributions. We also consider possible interventions that can effectively improve group qualification or promote equality of group qualification. Our theoretical results and experiments on static real-world datasets with simulated dynamics show that our framework can be used to facilitate social science studies.

Key facts. Cited by 60 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). First posted on arXiv 21 Oct 2020.

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Citing papers per year: 2021: 8; 2022: 14; 2023: 11; 2024: 16; 2025: 5; 2026: 6.

60 papers.

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  1. 2021A survey on datasets for fairness-aware machine learningcited by 157
  2. 2022Fairness Transferability Subject to Bounded Distribution Shiftcited by 28
  3. 2022Fairness in Recommendation: Foundations, Methods and Applicationscited by 27
  4. 2023Long-Term Fairness with Unknown Dynamicscited by 27
  5. 2024Large Language Models as Recommender Systems: A Study of Popularity Biascited by 26
  6. 2021A Sociotechnical View of Algorithmic Fairnesscited by 24
  7. 2023Fairness and Accuracy under Domain Generalizationcited by 24
  8. 2023Causal Reinforcement Learning: A Surveycited by 23
  9. 2024Prompting Fairness: Integrating Causality to Debias Large Language Modelscited by 21
  10. 2022Achieving Long-Term Fairness in Sequential Decision Makingcited by 19
  11. 2021Unintended Selection: Persistent Qualification Rate Disparities and Interventionscited by 18
  12. 2022What-is and How-to for Fairness in Machine Learning: A Survey, Reflection, and Perspectivecited by 18
38 more
  1. 2021Fair Sequential Selection Using Supervised Learning Modelscited by 16
  2. 2023Multi-dimensional discrimination in Law and Machine Learning -- A comparative overviewcited by 15
  3. 2022Survey on Fair Reinforcement Learning: Theory and Practicecited by 14
  4. 2022Policy Optimization with Advantage Regularization for Long-Term Fairness in Decision Systemscited by 14
  5. 2021Towards Return Parity in Markov Decision Processescited by 13
  6. 2022The Long Arc of Fairness: Formalisations and Ethical Discoursecited by 13
  7. 2022Equal Improvability: A New Fairness Notion Considering the Long-term Impactcited by 13
  8. 2023A Classification of Feedback Loops and Their Relation to Biases in Automated Decision-Making Systemscited by 13
  9. 2022Fair When Trained, Unfair When Deployed: Observable Fairness Measures are Unstable in Performative Prediction Settingscited by 12
  10. 2023Bias Propagation in Federated Learningcited by 12
  11. 2024Non-linear Welfare-Aware Strategic Learningcited by 12
  12. 2022Certifying Some Distributional Fairness with Subpopulation Decompositioncited by 11
  13. 2022Input-agnostic Certified Group Fairness via Gaussian Parameter Smoothingcited by 11
  14. 2024Addressing Polarization and Unfairness in Performative Predictioncited by 11
  15. 2025Robustness and Cybersecurity in the EU Artificial Intelligence Actcited by 11
  16. 2021Recommendation Fairness: From Static to Dynamiccited by 10
  17. 2022Reinforcement Learning with Stepwise Fairness Constraintscited by 9
  18. 2023Designing Long-term Group Fair Policies in Dynamical Systemscited by 9
  19. 2024Automating Data Annotation under Strategic Human Agents: Risks and Potential Solutionscited by 9
  20. 2023The Importance of Human-Labeled Data in the Era of LLMscited by 8
  21. 2024Learning under Imitative Strategic Behavior with Unforeseeable Outcomescited by 8
  22. 2023Tier Balancing: Towards Dynamic Fairness over Underlying Causal Factorscited by 7
  23. 2024Algorithmic Decision-Making under Agents with Persistent Improvementcited by 7
  24. 2021Long-Term Resource Allocation Fairness in Average Markov Decision Process (AMDP) Environmentcited by 6
  25. 2023Adapting Static Fairness to Sequential Decision-Making: Bias Mitigation Strategies towards Equal Long-term Benefit Ratecited by 6
  26. 2022Social Bias Meets Data Bias: The Impacts of Labeling and Measurement Errors on Fairness Criteriacited by 5
  27. 2025How Strategic Agents Respond: Comparing Analytical Models with LLM-Generated Responses in Strategic Classificationcited by 5
  28. 2021Statistical discrimination in learning agentscited by 4
  29. 2024Striking a Balance in Fairness for Dynamic Systems Through Reinforcement Learningcited by 4
  30. 2024Long-Term Fairness Inquiries and Pursuits in Machine Learning: A Survey of Notions, Methods, and Challengescited by 4
  31. 2024What Hides behind Unfairness? Exploring Dynamics Fairness in Reinforcement Learningcited by 3
  32. 2022A Survey on Preserving Fairness Guarantees in Changing Environmentscited by 2
  33. 2024Lookahead Counterfactual Fairnesscited by 2
  34. 2025Anticipating Gaming to Incentivize Improvement: Guiding Agents in (Fair) Strategic Classificationcited by 2
  35. 2025A Causal Lens for Learning Long-term Fair Policiescited by 2
  36. 2023Asymptotically Fair Participation in Machine Learning Models: an Optimal Control Perspectivecited by 1
  37. 2024Long-Term Fair Decision Making through Deep Generative Modelscited by 1
  38. 2024Challenging the Human-in-the-loop in Algorithmic Decision-makingcited by 1

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