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Evidence of Ethnic Discrimination in the Swedish Labor-Market Using Experimental Data
Abstract
We present evidence of ethnic discrimination in the recruitment process by sending fictitious applications to real job openings. Applications with identical skills were randomly assigned Middle Eastern- or Swedish-sounding names and applications with a Swedish name receive fifty percent more callbacks for an interview.We extend previous analyses by adding register and interview information on firms/recruiters to the experimental data. We find that male recruiters and workplaces with fewer than twenty employees less often call applications with a Middle Eastern name for an interview.
... For instance, male recruiters have been found to be more inclined to consider ethnicity (Carlsson and Rooth 2007) and a criminal record (Baert and Verhofstadt 2015) when assessing candidates. Second, recruiters in smaller firms are more likely to discriminate against ethnic minority applicants (Kaas and Manger 2012;Carlsson and Rooth 2007). Third, in some cases, employers with an ethnic minority background have been shown to be more likely to hire members of the same minority (Booth et al. 2012). ...
... Of the three heterogenous effects we hypothesized, we found a statistically significant interaction effect only for the respondent's gender, with differential signalling being visible among male recruiters. This is in line with the literature on labour market discrimination reviewed above, which suggests that male recruiters are more likely to apply statistical reasoning when evaluating candidates than their female counterparts (Carlsson and Rooth 2007;Baert and Verhofstadt 2015). These results are presented in Table S5 in supplementary material). ...
... In our analysis of heterogeneous effects, we were able to identify a relatively strong inclination to rely on differential signalling among male -but not among female-recruiters. This result is in line with previous findings supporting the notion that male recruiters are more likely to use statistical reasoning when recruiting and thus more prone to discrimination (Carlsson and Rooth 2007;Baert and Verhofstadt 2015). ...
In this article we explore the question of whether the socioeconomic context in which educational credentials are obtained affects their signalling value. Signalling theory predicts that educational credentials in labour markets have a value beyond providing information on a person's human capital. Educational credentials function as a filter, by selecting individuals who possess important productivity-related qualities. Theoretically, we would expect individuals who grew up in a socially disadvantaged context to need more productivity-related qualities to obtain any given educational credential. More specifically, we test the hypothesis that the signalling value of educational credentials will be larger for candidates with an immigration background and/or working-class parents. Empirically, we use data collected in a survey experiment carried out in the apprenticeship market in Switzerland. We find that socially disadvantaged candidates do receive a higher premium for a given credential, but only from male recruiters.
... studies of implicit identity-based discrimination in employment and in academic inclusion, paying special attention to ecological validity. Our approach is inspired by the classic experimental design introduced in (Carlsson & Rooth, 2007), where identical job-application letters to Swedish employers were marked with different social identity indicators (Swedish-sounding candidate name versus Arab-sounding candidate name). More recent studies have extended similar designs to testing algorithmic hiring tools (Cowgill & Tucker, 2019), suggesting that traditional forms of implicit discrimination carry over into automated decision-making. ...
... Our approach slightly diverges from the classical (Carlsson & Rooth, 2007) design in relying on implicit rather than explicit identity markers, allowing for potentially more general results. We do not assume or test LLMs' explicit recognition of LLM authorship (although recent results in (Panickssery et al., 2024) suggest some form of recognition may occur in similar contexts), but rather look at the effects of the stylistic correlates of author-identity. ...
Are large language models (LLMs) biased towards text generated by LLMs over text authored by humans, leading to possible anti-human bias? Utilizing a classical experimental design inspired by employment discrimination studies, we tested widely-used LLMs, including GPT-3.5 and GPT4, in binary-choice scenarios. These involved LLM-based agents selecting between products and academic papers described either by humans or LLMs under identical conditions. Our results show a consistent tendency for LLM-based AIs to prefer LLM-generated content. This suggests the possibility of AI systems implicitly discriminating against humans, giving AI agents an unfair advantage.
... For the newly arrived immigrants, ethnic discrimination may occur (see e.g. Carlsson, 2010;Carlsson and Rooth, 2007). With the help of field experiments, Carlsson and Rooth (2007), for example, observed that Swedish names had a 50% higher probability of being contacted compared to persons with names from the Middle East. ...
... Carlsson, 2010;Carlsson and Rooth, 2007). With the help of field experiments, Carlsson and Rooth (2007), for example, observed that Swedish names had a 50% higher probability of being contacted compared to persons with names from the Middle East. ...
... Nonetheless, immigrants in Sweden face numerous barriers in the labor market and are severely underrepresented both among the electorate and among elected politicians (e.g., Bäck and Soininen 1998;Dahlstedt and Hertzberg 2007;Dancygier et al. 2015;Lindgren, Nicholson, and Oskarsson 2022;Lindgren and Österman 2022;Vernby and Dancygier 2019). Much of this scholarship has demonstrated that their exclusion from politics is not for lack of resources, candidate supply, or political interest (Adman and Strömblad 2015;Carlsson and Rooth 2007;Dancygier et al. 2015;. Rather, discrimination by party gatekeepers appears to play an important role in perpetually excluding immigrants (Dancygier et al. 2015;. ...
Politicians are increasingly subjected to violence, both online and offline. Recent studies highlight a gendered pattern to this violence. But, as societies diversify and minorities increasingly hold political office, we have yet to assess whether members of these groups face disproportionate levels of violence. Our research investigates levels and types of violence against immigrant background politicians in Sweden, where over one-third is either foreign-born or has a foreign-born parent, using a unique three-wave survey ( N=23,000 ) on Swedish elected officials. Across every form of violence examined, politicians with immigrant backgrounds report experiencing significantly more physical and psychological violence than their counterparts. These experiences are not without political consequence: immigrant background politicians, and among them especially women, are significantly more likely than their counterparts to consider exiting politics due to harassment. Together, these findings suggest that violence may be driving this already underrepresented group of immigrant background politicians out of office.
... A noteworthy exception is a recent study by Dahl and Krog (2018), which uses a field experiment to document that applicants with Middle Eastern-sounding names have significantly lower callbacks rates than applicants with Danish-sounding names. This is consistent with studies for other European countries that show that in particular immigrants from non-European countries face substantial penalties in the hiring process (Carlsson and Rooth, 2007;Kaas and Manger, 2012;Lippens et al., 2023). We will analyse whether exposure during childhood is able to reduce in-group biases among Danish managers. ...
... People typically unconsciously hold more negative attitudes or feelings about racial/ethnic outgroups (Axt et al., 2014) which in the hiring process can lead to automatic stereotype activation and judging applicants from racial/ethnic outgroups as less qualified. Such discrimination in hiring has been demonstrated in various studies across different countries considering different minorities (Carlsson and Rooth, 2007;Wood et al., 2009;Kaas and Manger, 2012). Algorithms have been proposed as the solution to this problem. ...
Introduction
Artificial intelligence algorithms are increasingly adopted as decisional aides in many contexts such as human resources, often with the promise of being fast, efficient, and even capable of overcoming biases of human decision-makers. Simultaneously, this promise of objectivity and the increasing supervisory role of humans may make it more likely for existing biases in algorithms to be overlooked, as humans are prone to over-rely on such automated systems. This study therefore aims to investigate such reliance on biased algorithmic advice in a hiring context.
Method
Simulating the algorithmic pre-selection of applicants we confronted participants with biased or non-biased recommendations in a 1 × 2 between-subjects online experiment (n = 260).
Results
The findings suggest that the algorithmic bias went unnoticed for about 60% of the participants in the bias condition when explicitly asking for this. However, overall individuals relied less on biased algorithms making more changes to the algorithmic scores. Reduced reliance on the algorithms led to the increased noticing of the bias. The biased recommendations did not lower general attitudes toward algorithms but only evaluations for this specific hiring algorithm, while explicitly noticing the bias affected both. Individuals with a more negative attitude toward decision subjects were more likely to not notice the bias.
Discussion
This study extends the literature by examining the interplay of (biased) human operators and biased algorithmic decision support systems to highlight the potential negative impacts of such automation for vulnerable and disadvantaged individuals.
... For example, names that are infrequent (Pascual et al. 2015) and perceived as unattractive (Guéguen & Pascual 2011) are associated with low employability in France. Similarly, names signaling certain racial and ethnic groups have been shown to bring disadvantages in employment opportunities in the US (Bertrand & Mullainathan 2004), Sweden (Carlsson & Rooth 2007), the UK (Wood et al. 2009), and Australia (Booth, Leigh, & Varganova 2012). ...
Research has shown that some first names can be disadvantageous on the marriage market. However, the precise mechanisms whereby names influence mate selection behaviour remain unknown. This study attempted to address this gap. More specifically, this investigation examined Japanese women’s preferences for male partners with common male names with clear readings as compared to male partners with names with unclear or “ambiguous” readings. This investigation had two guiding hypotheses: (1) Japanese women have a lower preference for ambiguous male names; (2) the lower degree of preference for ambiguous male names was attributable to Japanese women assuming that the names were indicative of a low social class. To test these hypotheses, we conducted a conjoint experiment of 1,261 single Japanese women aged 25 to 34 years in a fictitious online mate selection setting. Participants were provided with fourteen randomly generated profiles of potential marital partners and were asked to decide whether to prefer them or not. It was found that the female participants preferred profiles with common male names over profiles with ambiguous male names in an online mate selection setting, with a significant effect size of 7 percentage points. This finding supported hypothesis 1. However, no evidence was found for hypothesis 2.
... It is, however, difficult to detect and determine whether certain ethnic minorities are truly discriminated against in the labor market. Some experimental studies using fictitious applications have found evidence of discrimination against ethnic minorities in the Swedish labor market (Carlsson & Rooth 2007;Eriksson et al., 2017;Åslund & Skans-Nordström, 2012). However, results from experimental studies do not determine whether employers' behaviors reflect actual differences in personality traits or whether they are inaccurate (Ayaita, 2021;Bohren et al., 2019). ...
Sweden has an immigrant-native wage gap. Although the impact of educational attainment and other variables have been studied, the impact of specific personality traits analyzed separately on the wage gap remains poorly understood. In this study, we used a unique dataset that usually contains unobserved personality traits evaluated by psychologists during the Swedish military conscription, as well as post-conscription labor market data to examine whether and to what extent heterogeneity in four different personality traits contributes to disparities in wages among men born in Sweden (both Swedish-born parents) and naturalized men born outside EU-15. The sample consisted of 278,660 males (6% with a foreign background) and was based on the 1975–1990 birth cohorts. The findings show that two of the four personality traits, i.e., intensity and emotional stability, significantly contribute to the immigrant-native wage gap. Men born outside the EU-15 received lower returns (2–3%) from these traits compared to men born in Sweden. The difference in returns from these traits was robust across the sensitivity analyses. Our overall conclusion is that specific personality traits play a role in the immigrant-native wage gap.
... It is an unfortunate feature of many modern economies that members of certain historically marginalised groups continue to face some form of discrimination when seeking employment, as evidenced by papers like Braddock and McPartland (1987), Goldin and Rouse (2000), Bertrand and Mullainathan (2004), Carlsson and Rooth (2007), Giuliano et al. (2009) and Heywood and Parent (2012). In the context of such employment discrimination, this article seeks to show how some labour regulations aiming to protect job applicants and interns can actually amplify the prejudices faced by members of these communities. ...
This article provides a theoretical framework for comparing two different hiring practices: an unpaid competitive internship that is followed by a potential job offer versus a standard series of interviews. After fully characterizing the optimal hiring process, I show that high-ability minorities can be harmed by labour regulations that cause employers to shift towards a hiring process in which they are more likely to discriminate. Furthermore, preventing employers from giving truthful references is shown to exacerbate the obstacles to employment of a community traditionally facing discrimination.
... Nonetheless, immigrants in Sweden face numerous barriers in the labor market and are severely underrepresented both among the electorate and among elected politicians (e.g., Bäck and Soininen, 1998;Dahlstedt and Hertzberg, 2007;Dancygier et al., 2015;Lindgren and Österman, 2022;Lindgren, Nicholson and Oskarsson, 2022;Vernby and Dancygier, 2019). Much of this scholarship has demonstrated that their exclusion from politics is not for lack of resources, candidate supply, or political interest (Adman and Strömblad, 2015;Carlsson and Rooth, 2007;Dancygier et al., 2021Dancygier et al., , 2015. Rather, discrimination by party gatekeepers appears to play an important role in perpetually excluding immigrants (Dancygier et al., 2021(Dancygier et al., , 2015. ...
Politicians are increasingly subjected to violence, both online and offline. Recent studies highlight a gendered pattern to this violence. But, as societies diversify and minorities increasingly hold political office, we have yet to assess whether members of these groups face disproportionate levels of violence. Our research investigates levels and types of violence against immigrant background politicians in Sweden, where over one-third is either foreign-born or has a foreign-born parent, using a unique three-wave survey (N=23,000) on Swedish elected officials. Across every form of violence examined, politicians with immigrant backgrounds report experiencing significantly more physical and psychological violence than their counterparts. These experiences are not without political consequence: immigrant background politicians, and among them especially women, are significantly more likely than their counterparts to consider exiting politics due to harassment. Together , these findings suggest that violence may be driving this already underrepresented group of immigrant background politicians out of office.
... Using correspondence tests, discrimination has been found against people with Arabic-sounding names (e.g., Carlsson and Rooth, 2007;Bursell, 2014). Both of these studies found that discrimination was more common in low-skilled sectors. ...
... Discrimination in the workforce relates to differential treatment of minority groups based on their ethnic characteristics. Both employees and employers are subjected to the negative consequences of this discrimination (Carlsson & Rooth, 2007;Shakoori et al., 2020). Minorities often face mistreatment in Europe and North America, typically receiving lower wages and exhibiting lower job satisfaction and organizational commitment. ...
Objective: Workforce diversity is an essential phenomenon in organizations. Statistics indicate a growing diversity among the workforce in Iran, particularly in terms of ethnic diversity. This study aims to examine work diversity through systematic review with an emphasis on Iranian Organizations. Methodology: This study employs the PRISMA method to review articles published on the management of diversity in organizations. Of the 140 identified Iranian and international articles, 59 relevant articles were selected. Most articles focus on gender diversity, and other causes of diversity, especially ethnic diversity, have received limited critical studies. Additionally, only a few articles address diversity management and its strategies in organizations, which represents a research gap. Findings: The research findings explored workforce diversity in four categories: the importance of diversity management; diversity management and communication; diversity management and organizational justice; diversity management and workforce productivity. Conclusion: The literature review demonstrated that workforce diversity is considered inevitable not only due to its positive organizational outcomes but also because of legal and ethical requirements in our contemporary world. Furthermore, it can be argued that the performance of diversity management at the organizational level has been overlooked. Notably, most researchers in the United States and Western European countries adopt quantitative approaches, highlighting the significance of qualitative approaches.
... Notably, immigrants, seasoned employees, and individuals from the LGBT community constitute a progressively larger portion of the workforce. This demographic evolution potentially lays the groundwork for bias and discrimination targeting these segments (Carlsson & Rooth, 2007;Bendick et al., 1999;Haslam & Levy, 2006). While the discrimination faced by historically marginalized groups is a serious concern for the individuals affected, it also poses a frequently overlooked dilemma for the organizations implicated. ...
Last decade’s ethical leadership failures in business across the globe had severe ramifications, including bankruptcy for corporations that had previously been viewed as exemplary. Hence, ethical leadership has gained increased attention from both practitioners and researchers. In particular, the increased focus has been placed on ethical leadership perceptions in management settings. This paper presents empirical findings from a three-country experiment (N = 538) on the perceptions of ethical and unethical leadership, and how they interact with gender. Building on role congruity theory, we posit that female leaders encounter more severe criticism for unethical leadership compared to male leaders, but they also garner greater positive reactions for ethical leadership. We also hypothesize the existence of national differences in ethical leadership perceptions. Our results indicate that the rater’s perceptions are influenced by the gender of the leader they are rating and by ethical leadership. The rater’s gender, however, does not affect the evaluation of male and female leaders in the cultures examined. We have also found national differences among perceptions of ethical leadership, in line with the Corruption Perception Index. We further explore the consequences of these results for theoretical and practical applications in this paper and propose directions for future research.
... This theory states that the preference coefficient equals the difference in the group wage rate, both when preference is present and when it is absent. Beyond gender, scholars have explored discrimination based on various other factors, including ethnicity [63,64] and religion [65,66]. Arrow, Ashenfelter and Rees [67] offer an alternative viewpoint, suggesting that discrimination arises from incomplete information access and the attribution of group traits to individuals. ...
Although the Chinese government has implemented a variety of measures, the gender wage gap in 21st century China has not decreased. A significant body of literature has studied this phenomenon using sector segmentation theory, but these studies have overlooked the importance of the collective economy beyond the public and private sectors. Moreover, they have lacked assessment of the gender wage gap across different wage groups, hindering an accurate estimation of the gender wage gap in China, and the formulation of appropriate recommendations. Utilizing micro-level data from 2004, 2008, and 2013, this paper examines trends in the gender wage gap within the public sector, private sector, and collective economy. Employing a selection bias correction based on the multinomial logit model, this study finds that the gender wage gap is smallest and most stable within the public sector. Furthermore, the private sector surpasses the collective economy in this period, becoming the sector with the largest gender wage gap. Meanwhile, a recentered influence function regression reveals a substantial gender wage gap among the low-wage population in all three sectors, as well as among the high-wage population in the private sector. Additionally, employing Brown wage decomposition, this study concludes that inter-sector, rather than intra-sector, differences account for the largest share of the gender wage gap, with gender discrimination in certain sectors identified as the primary cause. Finally, this paper provides policy recommendations aimed at addressing the gender wage gap among low-wage groups and within the private sector.
... A meta-analysis of field experiments of racial discrimination in hiring conducted in nine countries in Europe and North America shows that Sweden, together with France, has the highest level of hiring discrimination toward non-White minorities (Quillian et al., 2019). Carlsson and Rooth (2007) found that persons with Middle Eastern sounding names receive 50% lower callback for a job interview as compared to those with native Swedish sounding names. In addition, it is shown that ethnic discrimination in Sweden is larger when the labor market is tighter (Carlsson et al., 2018a). ...
Introduction: A large body of research has established a consensus that racial discrimination in CV screening occurs and persists. Nevertheless, we still know very little about how recruiters look at the CV and how this is connected to the discriminatory patterns. This article examines the way recruiters view and select CVs and how they reason about their CV selection choices, as a first step in unpacking the patterns of hiring discrimination. Specifically, we explore how race and ethnicity signaled through the CV matter, and how recruiters reason about the choices they make. Methods: We recorded data from 40 respondents (20 pairs) who are real-life recruiters with experiences in recruitment of diverse employees in three large Swedish-based firms in the finance and retail sector in two large cities. The participating firms all value diversity, equity and inclusion in their recruitment. Their task was to individually rate 10 fictious CVs where race (signaled by face image) and ethnicity (signaled by name) were systematically manipulated, select the top three candidates, and then discuss their choices in pairs to decide on a single top candidate. We examined whether respondents' choices were associated with the parts of the CV they looked at, and how they reasoned and justified their choices through dialog. Results: Our results show that non-White CVs were rated higher than White CVs. While we do not observe any statistically significant differences in the ratings between different racial groups, we see a statistically significant preference for Chinese over Iraqi names. There were no significant differences in time spent looking at the CV across different racial groups, but respondents looked longer at Polish names compared to Swedish names when presented next to a White face. The dialog data reveal how respondents assess different CVs by making assumptions about the candidates' job and organizational fit through limited information on the CVs, especially when the qualifications of the candidates are evaluated to be equal.
... Moreover, factors such as number of migrants, sociocultural preferences, age, and sex interact (BRÅ, 2021), and with young and male-dominated migration flows from developing countries to Sweden , a substantial overrepresentation of migrants in crime statistics and poor school results is to be expected. Indeed, all countries may manifest everyday racism (Malmqvist, 2015) and labor market discrimination (Carlsson & Rooth, 2007) to some extent, but according to the World Values Survey (2023), Sweden is one of the least racist countries in the world and increasingly so. A large percentage of migrants from developing countries do also feel at home in Sweden, which indicates that the country in question puts effort into accommodating migrants through the welfare systems and general hospitality and perhaps the fact that there are sizeable diasporas in the country that welcome fellow co-ethnics matter. ...
... This favourable treatment could be because of a lower animosity towards candidates of non-majority ethnicity or because the job agent possesses more (unfavourable) information about the (average) unobserved productivity characteristics of this (group of) applicant(s) (Arrow, 1973;Becker, 1971;Phelps, 1972). Carlsson and Rooth (2007), Edo et al. (2019), and Gutfleisch (2022) provide empirical evidence for this proposition. However, given our experimental setup, it was often impossible to know who this decision maker was, which could differ from the job agent mentioned in the vacancy (if this information was already available). ...
Previous research has demonstrated that context matters in understanding unequal treatment in hiring—for example, some studies have illustrated that hiring discrimination is low in large organisations or high in public-facing occupations. Following a review of the recent literature on ethnic hiring discrimination, we identified fourteen plausible moderators (i.e. discrimination correlates) from which we derived an equal number of hypotheses related to taste-based and statistical discrimination theories. We empirically tested these hypotheses through a moderation analysis of data from a correspondence experiment supplemented with occupation, organisation, and sector characteristics. Our empirical approach allowed us to simultaneously evaluate and control the interaction effects of multiple contextual factors with ethnic hiring discrimination. Overall, we find that minority (non-Flemish) candidates receive significantly fewer positive responses to their job applications than majority (Flemish) candidates. In particular, non-Flemish candidates experience significantly less discrimination when applying to not-for-profit organisations or organisations with a large workforce. We also find partial empirical support for the hypotheses that hiring discrimination is high in occupations requiring much interaction between colleagues and in occupations where labour market tightness is low. Future research avenues include evaluating the rationale behind the discrimination correlates mentioned above and testing the replicability of this study's findings across different institutional contexts, labour markets, and grounds for discrimination.
... As a result, immigrants often have to face limited employment opportunities, making it difficult for immigrants to find jobs compared with the natives (Akresh 2006;Bates 2011). Moreover, immigrants will frequently suffer discrimination in the workplace (Carlsson and Rooth 2007). The scarcity of employment prospects available to immigrants serves as a prominent factor contributing to the elevated levels of entrepreneurial activity observed among immigrant populations in host countries (Chaganti et al. 2008;Li 2001). ...
Although immigrants represent a sizeable and growing portion of the total U.S. population and immigrant entrepreneurs play an important role in the U.S. economy, they remain relatively understudied within the literature. Existing research suggests that immigrants are more likely to start a business than non-immigrants in the U.S. and face unique challenges while doing so. This paper attempts to contribute to the existing literature by examining the impact of entrepreneurial competencies of immigrant entrepreneurs on their firms’ performance. Given that entrepreneurial success, performance, and growth depend heavily on entrepreneurial competencies, we develop a conceptual discussion and three propositions indicating that immigrant-owned firm performance is influenced by three specific competencies held by immigrant entrepreneurs: proficiency in the host country’s language, knowledge about the host country, and cultural intelligence. Following a review of the literature and the development of the propositions, we discuss implications, limitations, and future research directions for researchers and practitioners.
... We also found in the field (i.e., lost letter) experiment that when participants are unaware that they are part of a study, Arab senders, regardless of gender or sexual orientation, receive less help compared to Swedish senders. This finding aligns with previous studies showing ethnic discrimination toward Arab groups in the Swedish labor market (e.g., Carlsson & Rooth, 2007). ...
Hiring discrimination research has predominantly focused on labor market outcomes based on one or two group memberships, most commonly ethnicity and gender. The main aim of the doctoral dissertation is to explore warmth and competence perceptions associated with multiple demographic group membership and how they may affect evaluations and behavior in a workplace and hiring context.
Study I relies on the stereotype content model (SCM, Fiske et al., 2002) to explore how employees perceive intersections of demographic groups on universal dimensions of social perception (warmth and competence). Namely, the intersection of ethnicity (Arab/Swedish), gender (male/female), age (30-year-old/55-year-old), and sexual orientation (gay/heterosexual). Results show that when stigmatized group categories are added to one another, this does not necessarily produce additive negative effects.
Study II addressed perceptions of 22 common occupations in Sweden (e.g., Mechanic, Surgeon). Results show that warmth and competence can account for perceptions of the pre-selected occupations with a five-cluster solution found most descriptive of the data.
Study III uses a modernized version of the “lost letter” technique (Milgram et al., 1965) and experimentally tests how ethnic discrimination is affected by signals of gender and sexual orientation. We sent out 6 654 emails as a job opportunity follow-up which ostensibly reached the wrong recipient, and measured the number of returned emails notifying the sender of the mistake. We find evidence of ethnic discrimination, with Arabs receiving fewer replies than Swedes. No discrimination based on sexual orientation or intersectional effects were found.
Study IV had the main aim of testing whether matching stereotype content of job position and intersected group membership (gender and sexual orientation) in terms of warmth and competence affects the job suitability evaluations of job seekers. The results show no evidence of matching effects operating, as the gay job seekers, regardless of job position or gender, receive higher job suitability ratings than their straight counterparts.
Further research should address whether there is an ongoing positive attitude change towards gay groups and whether the positive perceptions affect behavioral outcomes. I conclude that intersecting categories generates important knowledge on the perception and treatment of groups at work.
... A large part of this evidence concerns labor and housing market discrimination against African Americans in the United States and against people with Arab-sounding names in European countries. For example, field experiments of labor market discrimination in Sweden consistently show that job applicants with Arab-sounding names, on average, need to apply for at least 50 percent more available jobs than job applicants with Swedish-sounding names in order to receive similar number of positive responses from employers (Carlsson & Rooth, 2007;Bursell, 2014;Aldén et al., 2021). Similar results exist for the Swedish housing market. ...
Ethnic discrimination is common in labor and housing markets. It leads to lower wages and higher unemployment for ethnic minorities, to segregation in the labor market, and to residential segregation. Several studies show that the Covid-19 pandemic increased the extent of ethnic discrimination. The prejudice against hiring migrants may have increased because people from countries where the epidemic started or from countries with a lower vaccination coverage were blamed for the spread. It may also have increased in the cases where the Covid-19 pandemic led to higher unemployment making it less costly for employers to discriminate.KeywordsDiscriminationPrejudiceCoronavirusCovid-19PandemicLabor market discriminationHousing segregation
... Such variation may be attributed to the home country context but also to changing skills requirements at jobs due to processes like digitalisation or economic adjustments as well as to policy changes. The demand for, and supply of, immigrants' skills may also mismatch due to employers' statistical or taste-based discrimination (Becker, 1964;Carlsson & Rooth, 2007). There are different explanations for the process of ethnic sorting into different industries. ...
This chapter examines sorting of workers from various immigrant groups in Sweden into sectors and jobs comparing these patterns to jobs held by natives in the same sectors. A specific focus is put on the skill composition of jobs and how this differs among migrants’ and natives’ job sorting. We use matched data on jobs, employers, and workers in Swedish hospitality, construction, and retail sectors to document patterns of country of origin-based segmentation. Results show that immigrants primarily enter routine jobs requiring a higher level of technical skills compared to natives who are more often found in non-routine jobs requiring interpersonal skills. In construction and retail, immigrants and natives work mostly in non-routine jobs. These stark patterns of job segregation suggests that education and training efforts among migrant workers should consider the acquisition of language and interpersonal skills in addition to formal training and education.KeywordsLow-skill industriesSegmentationSkillsMigrantsRoutine jobs
... Based on this, it could be expected that soccer clubs in Scandinavia would be predominantly accepting of foreigners. However, several studies show that ethnic discrimination is a persistent and extensive challenge in the Scandinavian countries, particularly in the labour market (Åslund and Skans, 2012;Carlsson and Rooth, 2007;Dahl and Krog, 2018;Quillian et al., 2019;Rydgren, 2004). This suggests that there are likely to be instances of discrimination also in sports settings. ...
In this paper, we examine ethnic discrimination using sport as a laboratory. Applying a field experiment in the three Scandinavian countries-Sweden, Norway, and Denmark-we test whether foreign female minority groups experience greater rejection rates when seeking inclusion in amateur soccer clubs. Soccer coaches were contacted by e-mail using native and foreign-sounding names from selected groups, requesting to participate in trial practice. Previous findings show persistent discrimination of foreign minority groups in the labour market, and recent work suggests that discrimination also occurs in the context of soccer. Our findings from Scandinavia show that Sweden is the only country that shows statistically significant signs of discriminatory patterns, and the probability of experiencing discrimination increases with cultural distance. However, cultural distance appears to have no influence in Norway and Denmark. We further investigate whether male or female coaches demonstrate different discriminatory behaviour when being contacted, but our analysis shows almost no gender differences. Findings suggest that how men and women differ in their discriminatory behaviour is context specific. The differences identified across nations and previous studies are discussed to better understand the mechanisms of discrimination.
... Sweden shows a high rate of discrimination (Quillian UNEMPLOYMENT PERSISTENCE et al., 2019), possibly reflecting the composition of its immigrant-background population. Field experiments from Sweden find that call-back rates show a negative correlation with an ethno-cultural distance where applicants with Arabic/North African/Middle-Eastern sounding names have the lowest call-back rates (Carlsson and Rooth, 2007;Bursell, 2014;Arai et al., 2016). This immigrant disadvantage is mirrored among the second generation and across sectors (Carlsson, 2010). ...
Many immigrant groups disproportionately experience unemployment and this disadvantage often extends to their children—the second generation. This paper contributes to this stream of research by studying unemployment dynamics of the ancestral population and second-generation immigrants in Sweden. In particular, we ask: does unemployment persistence differ between ancestral Swedes and 10 second-generation immigrant groups? We answer this question using correlated dynamic random-effects logit models to study the effect of past on current unemployment—also known as genuine state dependence. We use Swedish register data to follow individuals over their early working careers. The results indicate that although past unemployment has a similar relative effect on current unemployment across the ancestry groups, past unemployment increases the probability of current unemployment (absolute effect) more among second-generation Middle-Eastern, Turkish, and Southern European immigrants. Because of higher baseline levels of unemployment, the labour market consequences of similar relative effects are more pronounced among the second generation as compared to ancestral Swedes. The paper concludes by elaborating on the reasons behind these contrasting results while highlighting the importance of examining heterogeneous effects on both the relative and absolute scales.
... In the field, numerous correspondence and audit studies have tested for discrimination among decision makers in a variety of market contexts by providing information (e.g. resumes) from fictitious individuals [17][18][19][20] . Recent studies have extended this work to online platforms such as Craigslist 21 , Amazon Mechanical Turk 2 , eBay 22 and Airbnb 23 . ...
Identifying the influence of social identity over how individuals evaluate and interact with others is difficult in observational settings, prompting scholars to utilize laboratory and field experiments. These often take place in highly artificial settings or, if in the field, ask subjects to make evaluations based on little information. Here we conducted a large-scale (N = 405,179) field experiment in a real-world high-information context to test the influence of social identity. We collaborated with a popular football live score app during its poll to determine the world’s best football player for the 2017–2018 season. We randomly informed users of the nationality or team affiliation of players, as opposed to just providing their names, to prime in-group status. As a result of this subtle prime, we find strong evidence of in-group favoritism based on national identity. Priming the national identity of a player increased in-group voting by 3.6% compared to receiving no information about nationality. The effect of the national identity prime is greatest among individuals reporting having a strong national identity. In contrast, we do not find evidence of in-group favoritism based on team identity. Informing individuals of players’ team affiliations had no significant effect compared to not receiving any information and the effect did not vary by strength of team identity. We also find evidence of out-group derogation. Priming that a player who used to play for a user’s favorite team but now plays for a rival team reduces voting for that player by between 6.1 and 6.4%.
... In France, both immigrants and their descendants face worse employment outcomes [89,206]. Replacing Swedish with Middle-Eastern-sounding names in CVs [62] was shown to reduce the rate of call-backs by a large margin, and the rate of discrimination was amplified by male recruiters in particular. While labourmarket integration in Sweden remains straightforward for Western immigrants, immigrants from Africa, Asia and South America [116] face far greater obstacles, showcasing the negative impact of xenophobia. ...
Xenophobia is one of the key drivers of marginalisation, discrimination, and conflict, yet many prominent machine learning (ML) fairness frameworks fail to comprehensively measure or mitigate the resulting xenophobic harms. Here we aim to bridge this conceptual gap and help facilitate safe and ethical design of artificial intelligence (AI) solutions. We ground our analysis of the impact of xenophobia by first identifying distinct types of xenophobic harms, and then applying this framework across a number of prominent AI application domains, reviewing the potential interplay between AI and xenophobia on social media and recommendation systems, healthcare, immigration, employment, as well as biases in large pre-trained models. These help inform our recommendations towards an inclusive, xenophilic design of future AI systems.
... 5,9,10 Furthermore, pre-and post-migration difficulties such as traumatic experiences and discrimination in the host country or a low income upon arrival might influence the risk of LMM and place refugees at elevated risk for somatic or common mental disorders. 6,[11][12][13][14][15][16] These factors represent a downward spiral as pre-existing untreated mental or somatic disorders might hamper work ability, thereby further increasing the risk of LMM. In turn, LMM might have adverse effects on refugees' mental and physical health and further exacerbate symptoms. ...
Background:
Changes in Swedish national insurance policies over time and/or migration-related health inequalities may influence the risk for labour market marginalization (LMM) in refugees as compared to the Swedish-born host population. This study aimed to investigate potential period effects in the association between refugee status and the risk of LMM and explore any differences by country of birth, age and duration of residence.
Methods:
Using national registers, three cohorts including all Swedish residents during 1999, 2004 and 2009 were followed for 4 years (cohort 2000, 2005 and 2010). Cox regression models were used to examine associations between refugee status and LMM defined as long-term unemployment (>180 days annually) and disability pension. The analyses were adjusted for socio-demographic factors, morbidities and labour market-related factors. Stratified analyses were run for age, country of birth and duration of residence.
Results:
Across the cohorts, hazard ratios (HRs) were higher for long-term unemployment [2000: HR = 1.98; 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.96-2.01; 2005: HR = 2.30; 95% CI: 2.27-2.33; 2010: HR = 2.78; 95% CI: 2.75-2.81] for refugees compared to Swedish-born but not for disability pension. HRs for long-term unemployment were highest among refugees aged 25-34 and 35-44 years, from Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq and refugees with a shorter duration of residence.
Conclusions:
The risk of long-term unemployment appears to have increased for refugees over time. Particularly some refugee subgroups experienced more difficulties. These findings highlight ongoing disparities for refugees and implicate on a broader scale that changes in policies such as stricter regulations in the insurance or healthcare system might adversely affect them.
Racialized inequalities in organizations and workplaces are reproduced not only by the discrimination of non‐whites but also by behaviors among whites aimed at counteracting and resisting initiatives and measures aimed at achieving racial equality. On this background, the purpose of the present study was to empirically investigate expressions of white fragility, white counterreactions, and institutional resistance in organizational contexts in Sweden, as well as how these processes relate to system justificatory ideologies such as colorblind racism and meritocracy. In doing so, the study used a cross‐sectional design and a large sample ( N = 2774) of adults from the Swedish labor market to test hypotheses about the investigated concepts. The results of the study provided support for the hypotheses that white fragility, white counterreactions, and institutional resistance are relevant concepts to the understanding of the racial dynamics and the reproduction of racialized inequalities in organizations also outside the North American context (in this case Sweden). In addition, the study shows that white fragility is positively associated with colorblind racism and belief in meritocracy and highlights the role of these ideologies in legitimizing and maintaining workplace inequalities.
Previous work has found that adult children of international migrants in Western Europe have lower internal migration rates than individuals of native origin. This gap is important for differences in well-being, educational opportunities, and labor market outcomes. So far, however, little is known about the reasons for the greater geographical stability of migrant children. Theories suggest that structural differences such as economic resources as well as preferences for living near family may explain their lower internal migration rates. The current study tests these explanations by examining unique longitudinal register data from the Netherlands in which we follow the internal migration trajectories of people aged 18–50 in an observation window of 16 years between 2006 and 2022. We compare individuals of native origin with children of immigrants from Turkey and Morocco, two of the largest migrant populations in the country. Event history models confirmed that once socio-demographic characteristics were controlled for, children of migrants were less likely to migrate internally than individuals of native origin. Mediation analysis showed that economic resources did not explain the negative association; instead, the lower migration rates observed among children of migrants were mediated by geographical proximity to kin. Because migrant family networks are more geographically concentrated, children of migrants are more often discouraged from moving away. These findings highlight the pivotal role of family networks in explaining migrant-native differences in migration decision-making.
Discrimination of persons belonging to national minorities in the field of work and employment is an obstacle to the realization of their guaranteed economic and social rights. According to the Office of Ombudswoman, ethnic or national affiliation is the most common basis of discrimination, and the field of work and employment is the most common area of discrimination in the Republic of Croatia. Therefore, the aim of this dissertation is to investigate discrimination of persons belonging to national minorities in the field of work and employment in Croatia, as well as existence of multiple discrimination against persons belonging to national minorities and respondents’ knowledge of the legislative framework of protection against discrimination in the Republic of Croatia. A survey of discrimination in the field of work and employment in Croatia was conducted in 2021 on a sample of 520 respondents belonging to national minorities. The parameters of descriptive statistics based on adequate central tendency measures and dispersion measures were determined for data analysis. A chi-square test was done in order to analyze the data in relation to the socio-demographic characteristics of the respondents. The reliability of the measurement scale on the occurrence of discrimination of persons belonging to national minorities in the field of work and employment was determined, the basic segments of employment that contribute to the occurrence of discrimination have been identified as well as the strength of the connection between the attitudes of the respondents belonging to national minorities. The results of the research show the insufficient knowledge of the legislative framework for protection against discrimination in Croatia. The results show that discrimination of minority population is strongly present in the field of work and employment in Croatia and that occurrence of discrimination in certain segments of the employment increase the chance that discrimination will recur or last for a longer period of time. The conducted research is the first quantitative scientific research on the topic of discrimination in the field of work and employment in Croatia on the minority population and represents a quality basis for deeper scientific analysis and research on the topic.
Xenophobia is one of the key drivers of marginalisation, discrimination, and conflict, yet many prominent machine learning fairness frameworks fail to comprehensively measure or mitigate the resulting xenophobic harms. Here we aim to bridge this conceptual gap and help facilitate safe and ethical design of artificial intelligence (AI) solutions. We ground our analysis of the impact of xenophobia by first identifying distinct types of xenophobic harms, and then applying this framework across a number of prominent AI application domains, reviewing the potential interplay between AI and xenophobia on social media and recommendation systems, healthcare, immigration, employment, as well as biases in large pre-trained models. These help inform our recommendations towards an inclusive, xenophilic design of future AI systems.
Migration tends to lead to both integration and segregation in several national and regional contexts, two phenomena which seem contradictory at first glance. In Sweden, there is a negative statistical relationship between the percentage of migrants and school results. Individual-level data partly confirms this pattern. This seems to be, in part, related to the composition of migrants in both countries as Sweden and the United States have had high influxes of migrants from developing countries such as Afghanistan, Eritrea, Iraq, Somalia, and Syria in the case of Sweden and Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras regarding the United States. However, much of the same data also shows that a partial integration has taken place. To some extent, this might be because of partially successful integration of migrants in the United States, but also due to the fact that the demographic composition of migrants has changed as more talented Africans and Asians have entered the country in recent decades. It is likely that only high-skilled migration flows to Sweden and the United States can end the parallelization of integration and segregation in both contexts.
While labour market penalties related to motherhood are a widely studied topic, less is known about the implications of signalled potential fertility. We thus posed the question of whether potential fertility—operationalized as the likelihood that a childless woman will transition to motherhood depending on observed sociodemographic characteristics—is associated with a wage penalty and—if so—what the drivers of this wage gap are. We further tested theory-driven hypotheses about heterogeneity across institutional contexts (i.e. in Germany and the United Kingdom) and socio-economic classes. In so doing, we relied on SOEP, BHPS, and UKHLS panel data to construct a synthetic measure of potential fertility over the period from 1991 to 2017. We first explored the overall association between potential fertility and wages and found a wage gap to the disadvantage of potential mothers in both contexts, albeit with non-negligible heterogeneity across time and socio-economic classes. Subsequently, we selected the top and bottom quartiles of the distribution of potential fertility and performed a 2-fold decomposition of the wage differential between potential mothers and women who are less likely to transition to motherhood. The observed wage gap can mostly be explained by compositional differences in observed characteristics between the two groups of women, thereby leaving little room for explanations based on employer discrimination.
We conduct a large-scale natural field experiment with a Fortune 500 company to test several light-touch approaches to attract minorities to high-profile positions. A total of 5,000 prospective applicants were randomized into treatments that vary a small portion of recruiting materials. We find that self-selection at two early-career stages exhibits a substantial race gap. We then show that this gap can be strongly influenced by several treatments, with some closing the race gap and increasing application rates of minorities by 40% and others being particularly effective for minority women. These effects are not accompanied by any declines in application rates of majority group job seekers. In addition, we do not find that endorsing the “business case” for diversity reduces the race gap or raises application rates by minorities or women. The heterogeneities we find by gender, race, and career stage shed light on the underlying drivers of self-selection barriers among minorities.
This paper was accepted by Yan Chen, behavioral economics and decision analysis.
Funding: The authors thank the Brigham Young University College of Family, Home, and Social Science for generous research support. This research was funded in part by the Lowe Institute of Political Economy at Claremont McKenna College as well as the Australian Research Council Future Fellowship grant Nr. 190100252. Christina Rott thanks the School of Business and Economics, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, for research support through the Hermine Weijland Fellowship.
Supplemental Material: The data files and online appendices are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.4909 .
In the fields of labour market research and industrial relations research, there is increasing interest in post-colonial societies and the labour market outcomes of indigenous peoples. However, existing research has generally underexplored the Greenlandic labour market. This is particularly true for factors associated with the Greenlandic Inuit population's employment outcomes. In this article, we investigate barriers and potentials for labour market participation in Greenland, focusing on individual-level factors that promote or inhibit the likelihood of being employed. We use a unique, nationally representative survey of the working-age population and explore these factors through a series of logistic regression analyses. We find that educational attainment, positive self-assessed health, and the number of people in the household were positively related to employment. Our most important findings and contributions are that respondents who answered the survey in Greenlandic were less likely to be employed compared to those who answered it in Danish. Furthermore, if a respondent was born in Greenland, compared to being born in Denmark, it lowers the likelihood of being employed. We interpret this disparity as evidence of an ethnically segregated labour market with indications of discrimination.
Relying on data from a large-scale field experiment in Sweden, this article studies discrimination in recruitment on the basis of gender and ethnicity combined with recruiter gender. The study includes 5641 job applications sent in response to advertised vacancies, and the employer callbacks to these. Gender and either a Swedish or a foreign-sounding name were randomly assigned to the applications, and recruiter gender was documented whenever available. Based on the callback rates, there is evidence of ethnic discrimination against foreign-named job applicants by both male and female recruiters. Also, male applicants with foreign-sounding names are discriminated more than female applicants with foreign-sounding names. Thus, the results show gendered ethnic discrimination in the Swedish labor market, and this does not appear to depend on recruiter gender in general. However, the patterns for gendered ethnic discrimination by recruiter gender vary across occupational categories.
Correspondence audits are a popular method to examine discrimination in a causal framework. However, they often require sending hundreds or thousands of emails to subjects. The sendemails package allows users to automatically send emails with Stata through PowerShell, which is open-source and cross-platform. Researchers can use this package to perform several email tasks, such as contacting students or colleagues with standardized messages. Additionally, researchers can perform more complex tasks that entail sending randomized messages with multiple attachments from multiple accounts, tasks that are often necessary to conduct correspondence audit tests. This paper introduces the command and illustrates multiple examples of its application.
I sidste magtudredning blev det påpeget, at kønsmagten er under sociokulturel forandring, mens den politisk og økonomisk forbliver ulige fordelt i mænds favør. I de 20 år, der er gået, er det dog ikke lykkedes at rette op på det forhold. Snarere er Danmark sakket bagud på internationale ligestillingsranglister, særligt når det kommer til økonomisk magt. I denne artikel præsenterer vi dels de nyeste tal på området, dels argumenterer vi for, at ligestillingsdagsordenen må suppleres med et bredere blik for mangfoldighed. Særligt mangler der intersektionel forskning, dvs. forskning om de dynamiske relationer mellem forskellige identitetsdimensioner – og disses betydning for individers og gruppers muligheder for at tiltage sig og udøve magt. Vi fokuserer på de fortsatte skævheder i og udfordringer for dansk erhvervsliv, men peger også på deres bredere konsekvenser i et magtperspektiv
In 2004, Bertrand and Mullainathan published an innovative piece of research that involved sending nearly 5,000 fictitious resumes to employers. Their paper is commonly cited for finding that applicants with White-sounding names benefitted more from experience on their resumes and received 50 percent more invitations to interview than other applicants. The current research, however, demonstrates that while Bertrand and Mullainathan made a critically important contribution to the literature on employment discrimination, there is still much more that we can learn from their data. Through a reanalysis of Bertrand and Mullainathan's data, we find that discriminatory effects were stronger in conditions in which a job posting's experience requirements were ambiguous, applicants with first names of Arabic origin experienced higher levels of discrimination than applicants with other non-White-sounding names, and that the discriminatory effects of having an African-American-sounding name could not be empirically differentiated from the discriminatory effects associated with a name's frequency within the overall population. Our findings contribute to the literature on human information processing and offer important practical contributions regarding how employers can potentially reduce discrimination in selection processes. Additionally, we offer important suggestions for the development of racial manipulations in future experimental research.
Over the last decade, enabled by the ever-faster dissemination of information, customers have increasingly begun to scrutinize CEOs’ ethical leadership behavior. Although potentially hazardous for companies, this development also poses opportunities, with some CEOs managing to create a positive image of their organizations through ethical leadership. Extensive literature also suggests that perception of leadership is not only influenced by CEOs’ behavior but also by gender stereotypes. The present study seeks to accentuate the relevance of gender in the public perception of ethical and unethical leadership. In a survey experiment using a nationally representative sample (N=1055) from Iceland, one of the most egalitarian countries in the world, we find that male CEOs suffer more severe negative consequences for unethical behavior then female CEOs do. Additionally, our results suggest that female members of the public are more appreciative of ethical leadership than their male counterparts. These results underscore the importance of gender stereotypes and perceiver’s gender when examining ethical leadership perceptions and indicate that ethical leadership might possess some unique characteristics that set it apart from other leadership concepts. We conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for theory and practice and suggest avenues for further research.
Institutions matter! This chapter bridges selected institutional settings influencing key labour outcomes. It stresses the inherently political process of institutional change after briefly discussing three case studies. First, it covers the evidence on topical minimum wage policies, arguing for what should be a context-based decision. Second, it turns to policy stances towards unemployment and its relationship with business cycles. Finally, it addresses the fight against discrimination, discussing measurement and policy issues.
Financial misbehavior is widespread and costly. The Dutch government legally requires every employee in the financial sector to take a Hippocratic oath, the so-called “banker’s oath.” We investigate whether nudges that (in)directly remind financial advisers of their oath affect their service. In a large-scale audit study, professional auditors confronted 201 Dutch financial advisers with a conflict of interest. We find that when auditors apply a nudge that directly refers to the banker’s oath, advisers are less likely to prioritize bank’s interests. In additional prediction tasks, we find that Dutch regulators expect stronger effects of the oath than observed.
The adjustment of industrial structure not only is an important driving force of economic development but also affects the income gap between urban and rural areas through the effect of resource allocation. Based on this, this article constructs an index of the adjustment range and adjustment quality of the industrial structure. The results show that the adjustment of industrial structure in the eastern region has significantly promoted economic catch-up but inhibited the widening of the income gap between urban and rural areas. The adjustment range and quality of industrial structure in central China has promoted economic catch-up, but the adjustment quality has inhibited economic catch-up. In the western region, the adjustment range and quality of the industrial structure have restrained the regional economy from catching up and expanding the income gap between urban and rural areas. In the eastern and central regions, economic catch-up and the narrowing of the urban-rural income gap significantly promote each other, while in the western region, economic catch-up and the urban-rural income gap significantly promote each other. This shows that both economic development and people’s livelihood improvement can be achieved in economically developed areas but not in underdeveloped areas.
This special issue revolves around the topic of unconscious bias in organizations. The six articles included draw on diverse disciplinary, theoretical, and methodological approaches to show how unconscious bias play out in organizational settings and how they lead to various forms of discrimination. The articles contribute to the current bias literature by (1) elevating the idea of bias from individualist perspectives toward more contextual considerations, (2) drawing on multiple perspectives from different research fi elds and thereby creating a more interdisciplinary understanding, (3) considering unconscious and discriminatory gender bias in intersection with other markers of social inequality, and (4) by reframing current understandings of bias in organizations toward a more actionable and change-oriented perspective. To conclude, the special issue illustrates novel approaches to and discussions on the matter of investigating bias at the root of discrimination in organizations.
This paper provides evidence on discrimination in the hiring process. We use data generated from a “policy experiment” conducted at the Swedish public employment offices. Individuals registered at these offices can post their qualifications in a database available to employers over the Internet. Potential employers are free to search this database for job candidates and contacts between employers and candidates are recorded. We use two complementary identification strategies. First, since our data contain all information available to employers, we argue that selection on observables is viable. Second, we utilize the fact that individuals can choose not to reveal their name and gender to potential employers. Our main finding is that women have a 15 percent lower chance than men of getting contacted by employers and that this differential is fully explained by discrimination. Our results concerning ethnic discrimination are less conclusive, probably due to measurement errors.
The evidence on discrimination produced from the audit method is examined. Audits survey the average firm and not the marginal firm which determines the level of market discrimination. Taken on its own terms, there is little evidence of labor market discrimination from audit methods. The validity of audit methods is critically dependent on unverified assumptions about equality across race/gender groups of the distributions of unobserved (by audit designers) productivity components acted on by firms and about the way labor markets work. Audits can find discrimination when none exists and can disguise it when it does. Copyright 1998 by American Economic Association.
Field experiments in which bogus pairs of transactors test for discrimination by applying for employment or housing, or by trading in product markets, have been widely-published during the last decade. However, no detailed justification has been provided for the deception involved. The general lack of veracity in the market-place, the social harm inflicted by discrimination and the superior accuracy and transparency of this technique justify deceiving the subjects of experiments. Deception of testers, however, may do them harm, contravenes the ethical standards of psychologists and sociologists and is unnecessary, as alternative procedures are available to deal with ‘experimenter effects’.
This article analyzes the subsequent unemployment risk of a sample of Swedish employees in 1991. We find that non-European immigrants face an unemployment risk twice as large as the corresponding risk for native workers despite controls for employee characteristics, the 1991 wage rate, and sorting across establishments with varying unemployment risks. Although all employees enjoy higher job security with higher seniority, large differences in unemployment risk by region of birth remain for workers with similar seniority levels. This suggests that labor unions and employers deviate from seniority rules established by the Swedish Security of Employment Act in favor of native workers.
Detecting ethnic discrimination in the labour market using individual data is aggravated by individual ethnic-specific characteristics that are unobserved by the researcher. In an attempt to estimate the effect of skin colour on the probability of being employed (vs, unemployed), the labour market success of foreign-born adopted individuals is compared with that of natives. Specifically, the unexplained differences in the probability of being employed between natives and adoptees is investigated using Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition methodology. It is found that adoptees with dissimilar looks to natives fare worse in the labour market, measured as a lower probability of being employed, than natives, and that these differences can be attributed to an unexplained difference rather than a difference in characteristics observed by the researcher. Also, such large differences are not found for adoptees with a similar appearance to natives. Hence, we cannot exclude the possibility that skin colour discrimination exists in the labour market.
This chapter summarizes recent research in economics that investigates differentials by race and gender in the labor market. We start with a statistical overview of the trends in labor market outcomes by race, gender and Hispanic origin, including some simple regressions on the determinants of wages and employment. This is followed in Section 3 by an extended review of current theories about discrimination in the labor market, including recent extensions of taste-based theories, theories of occupational exclusion, and theories of statistical discrimination. Section 4 discusses empirical research that provides direct evidence of discrimination in the labor market, beyond “unexplained gaps” in wage or employment regressions. The remainder of the chapter reviews the evidence on race and gender gaps, particularly wage gaps. Section 5 reviews research on the impact of pre-market human capital differences in education and family background that differ by race and gender. Section 6 reviews the impact of differences in both the levels and the returns to experience and seniority, with discussion of the role of training and labor market search and turnover on race and gender differentials. Section 7 reviews the role of job characteristics (particularly occupational characteristics) in the gender wage gap. Section 8 reviews the smaller literature on differences in fringe benefits by gender. Section 9 is an extensive discussion of the empirical work that accounts for changes in the trends in race and gender differentials over time. Of particular interest is the new research literature that investigates the impact of widening wage inequality on race and gender wage gaps. Section 10 reviews research that relates policy changes to race and gender differentials, including anti-discrimination policy. The chapter concludes with comments about a future research agenda.
We present longitudinal survey data suggesting that the terrorist attacks in the USA on September 11, 2001, changed attitudes
toward certain minorities in Sweden. This finding is consistent with results in previous studies. To investigate whether this
change in attitudes also affected the labor market situation of these minorities, we study unemployment exit around 9-11 using
detailed data on the entire Swedish working-age population. Contrary to what may be expected from many theories of labor market
discrimination, the time pattern of exits and entries for different ethnic groups, as well as difference-in-differences analyses,
shows no sign of increased discrimination toward these minorities. A possible explanation for this result is that employers
act rationally in their hiring decisions and do not respond to changes in attitudes toward immigrants as a group.
In the Netherlands, immigrants constitute at leart 8.7 percent of the total potential labour force. Their position on the Dutch labour market differs widely from that of the indigenous population. While the unemployment rate among the native Dutch population is 8 per cent, this rate is 23 per cent among immigrants.
Controlled experiments, using matched pairs of bogus transactors, to test for discrimination in the marketplace have been conducted for over 30 years, and have extended across 10 countries. Significant, persistent and pervasive levels of discrimination have been found against nonwhites and women in labour, housing and product markets. Rates of employment discrimination against non--whites, in excess of 25% have been measured in Australia, Europe and North America. A small number of experiments have also investigated employment discrimination against the disabled in Britain and the Netherlands, and against older applicants in the United States. Copyright Royal Economic Society 2002
for a discussion on ethical considerations of the method
- See Riach
See Riach and Rich (2004) for a discussion on ethical considerations of the method.
4
Are Emily and Greg More Employable Than Lakisha and Jamal? Field Experiment on Labor Discrimination
- Bertrand