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The Geography of Stigma: Experimental Methods to Identify the Penalty of Place
Abstract
The United States remains a spatially segregated nation by many measures including race, income, wealth, political views, education , and immigration status. Scholars have, for many years, grappled with questions stemming from spatial inequality and have come to recognize the neighborhood in which an individual lives as a socially organizing unit of space, predictive of many individual-level outcomes. The mechanisms that underlie the relationship between neighborhoods and outcomes for residents, however, remain relatively underexplored. In this chapter, we show how the use of audits and field experiments can help uncover one such mechanism—place-based stigma in social interactions. Specifically, we describe the methodology of a previous study (Besbris M, Faber JW, Rich P, Sharkey P, Effect of neighborhood stigma on economic transactions. Proc Nat Acad Sci 112:4994–4998, 2015) that revealed how signaling residence in a poor community of color negatively affected sellers’ ability to attract buyers in a classified marketplace. We focus on the study’s operationalization of neighborhoods and show how future research can use non-individual-level treatment characteristics such as units of space. Doing so helps us better understand the causal relationship between space and individual-level outcomes, as well as better parse the effects of individual-level variables versus non-individual-level variables, which are often conflated in non-experimental research. We close by suggesting the implementation of field experiments in testing for effects at other geographic scales, such as metropolitan area, state, region, country, or continent.
... goods specifically designed to parse the impact of place of residence from the impact of individual race/ethnicity. Unlike previous experiments in consumer markets which posted advertisements designed to signal individual characteristics of the seller (e.g., Besbris et al. 2015;Doleac and Stein 2013), we answered live advertisements. Such a design minimizes potential market distortions. ...
... Additionally, sellers were 25 percent more likely to suggest a meeting location in response to inquiries that signaled a disadvantaged neighborhood of residence. This preference for transactional partners from advantaged neighborhoods is consistent with the main finding in Besbris et al. (2015). However, Besbris et al. (2015) did not include names or other signals of individual race/ethnicity, making it impossible to determine whether the impact of neighborhood was driven by assumptions about the race or ethnicity of the transaction partner. ...
... This preference for transactional partners from advantaged neighborhoods is consistent with the main finding in Besbris et al. (2015). However, Besbris et al. (2015) did not include names or other signals of individual race/ethnicity, making it impossible to determine whether the impact of neighborhood was driven by assumptions about the race or ethnicity of the transaction partner. Our second major finding is that the effect of neighborhood is not explained by the race/ethnicity of the individual. ...
Scholarship on discrimination consistently shows that non‐Whites are at a disadvantage in obtaining goods and services relative to Whites. To a lesser extent, recent work has asked whether or not place of residence may also affect individuals’ chances in economic markets. In this study, we use a field experiment in an online market for second‐hand goods to examine transactional opportunities for White, Black, Asian, and Latino residents of both advantaged and disadvantaged neighborhoods. Our results show that sellers prefer transactional partners who live in advantaged neighborhoods to those who live in neighborhoods that are majority non‐White and have higher rates of poverty. This was true across all four racial/ethnic groups, revealing that neighborhood stigma exists independently of racial stigma. We discuss the implications for scholarship on neighborhood effects and we outline how future research using experiments can leverage various types of markets to better specify when characteristics like race trigger discrimination.
... Aspects of population composition constitute an important class of reputational objects. Research on how people perceive neighborhoods in the United States (Besbris, Faber, Rich, & Sharkey, 2018Hwang & Sampson, 2014;King, 2015;Logan & Collver, 1983;Sampson & Raudenbush, 2004), France (Wacquant, 1993(Wacquant, , 2007(Wacquant, , 2008, Israel (Semyonov & Kraus, 1982), and the Netherlands (Permentier et al., 2008) find an area's racial-ethnic make-up to be the most consistent predictor of its reputation, followed by income level. Age and family life cycle composition are also related to neighborhood reputations (Logan & Collver, 1983). ...
... However, scholars have identified certain disamenities correlated specifically with negative reputations. Air pollution and hazardous facilities (Bush, Moffatt, & Dunn, 2001;King, 2015;Rudolph & Kirkegaard, 2019), crime (Besbris et al., 2018;Sampson & Raudenbush, 2004), public housing (van Ingen, Sharpe, & Lashua, 2018), vacant lots (Parker, 2018a), noise (Pearce, 2012;Wutich et al., 2014), and the presence of syringe exchange programs and homeless shelters (Takahashi, 1998;Tempalski, Friedman, Keem, Cooper, & Friedman, 2007) are among the properties of a neighborhood that negatively impact how city 4 of 15 -EVANS AND LEE residents view it. In addition to these objective disamenities, perceptions of disorder (Hwang & Sampson, 2014;Pais et al., 2014;Sampson & Raudenbush, 2004) have been used as a proxy for reputation, given their tight linkage to a broader sense of the neighborhood as undesirable. ...
Neighborhood effects research continues to advance sociological understanding of inequality. Here, we consider a complementary but lower profile body of work. Since 2000, scholars have shown increasing interest in neighborhood reputations, socially constructed place identities that reflect the relative position of neighborhoods in the urban status hierarchy. These reputations, which emerge from multiple sources, are correlated most consistently with an area's racial and socioeconomic composition. Evidence suggests that stigmatized neighborhoods and their inhabitants experience a range of negative consequences. Prestigious neighborhood reputations may be aspirational, guiding households' preferences and influencing the residential selection process in a manner that reinforces existing disparities. Although reputations can change, they appear to do so incrementally because of their cumulative nature. A key challenge for future research is to demonstrate that neighborhood reputations are “real” rather than epiphenomenal, having significance beyond the objective characteristics of the places they represent. Resolving this issue will require finer alignment between reputation measurement and conceptualization, and more analysis of the extent of agreement needed among people's neighborhood perceptions for a reputation to exist. Longitudinal data on many neighborhoods, coupled with historical case studies, could illuminate the dynamics of reputations and help us better evaluate their presumed causes and effects.
... This is extremely significant for senses of personal wellbeing (Thomas, 2016), but may have wider implications. For example, Besbris et al. (2018) concluded that residency in a poor community of colour has a negative effect on sellers' ability to attract customers in a classified marketplace. Yet how might stigmatization of place have implications for the decision-making and perceptions of those who perceive such a place from outside, including with respect to tourism? ...
In a highly competitive market, managing the quality of destination image is a major concern for tourism marketers and policymakers. Negative connotations attached to a destination can potentially produce forms of stigma and lead to the stigmatization of a destination. Research on stigmas attached to tourists or tourism practitioners has gained growing scholarly attention; however, empirical knowledge on the stigmas associated with a place (spatial stigma) and the underlying factors driving the stigmatization of a destination is yet to be developed in tourism literature. To fill this gap and grounded in a multidisciplinary literature on the stigma-place nexus, this study explores the stigmatization of Iran through an analysis of in-depth interviews with the representatives of country’s key tourism informants. The findings of the qualitative study demonstrated how Iran’s destination identity is contested. Six reinforcing forms of stigmas were identified: political, religion, security, hygiene, performance and regional stigmas. The study concludes that destination stigma is a multi-dimensional phenomenon that manifests in different ways depending on where it is generated, encountered and experienced. In adopting a more contextual approach the study offers several new perspectives on stigma production, negotiation and resistance in tourism destinations.
... An intriguing experimental study on the disadvantages of place was recently carried out by sociologists using a creative design that tested the propensity for buyers to avoid purchasing used cell phones from sellers residing in certain stigmatized neighborhoods. Results indicated that sellers avoid buying from residents of badly branded places (Besbris et al. 2018). Place of residence does turn out to signal information about individuals as many observational studies suggest (Cho, Gimpel & Hui 2019). ...
Politically relevant identities and opinions about politics and government are neither randomly nor evenly distributed across space. The task of social scientists studying electoral geography is to understand why. Explanations go to individual characteristics, the characteristics of the settings where they live out their lives, or interesting interactions of the two. Moreover, social influence apparently has a physical and geographic component in the sense that proximity matters. Although people can form more contacts over longer distances than in the past, that does not seem to have diminished the greater weight placed on contacts close-by, pointing to the sustained coincidence of social and geographic space. Size and density of settlement also matter over and above compositional effects, continuing to account for many negative social outcomes. The chapter closes with the consideration of challenges to social scientific inference posed by the effort to account for the experience of a living in a multi-level world.
... Further, we found that the Asian American mother experienced disparities in receiving a response in rural areas compared to the White mother. Though previous research has documented the negative relation between city size and prevalence of racial discrimination (e.g., Besbris, Faber, Rich, & Sharkey, 2018;Giulietti et al., 2019), this literature has not included the experiences of Asian Americans. Thus, the present study extends understanding of contexts in which Note. S. Div = student ethnic-racial diversity; FRL = free and reduced lunch; STEM = STEM index. ...
Racial discrimination remains a mechanism by which ethnic-racial minorities are restricted from power. We examined whether racial discrimination restricts ethnic-racial minority access to high-achieving STEM schools. We conducted an audit correspondence experiment to investigate racial discrimination in guidance counselor responsiveness to 976 emails from fictitious Asian, Black, Latina, and White mothers inquiring about school enrollment. Moderation analyses revealed that guidance counselors restricted access from Asian mothers at schools characterized as rural, lower socioeconomic status, and higher STEM prestige-evidence of gatekeeping points to the restriction of Asian students from advanced STEM opportunities. Results are situated within educational audit experiments to objectively document how racism from multiple facets of the education system intersect to inhibit ethnic-racial minority youth.
... This lan guage may also lead some rent ers to believe that these neigh bor hoods have high rates of crime, evic tion, and pov erty. That is, this lan guage works in tan dem with any preexisting infor ma tion to fur ther stig ma tize neigh bor hoods (Besbris et al. 2015(Besbris et al. , 2018(Besbris et al. , 2019Sampson and Raudenbush 2004). However, some rent ers might appre ci ate hav ing rental require ments presented upfront, and other words within this topic focus on sub jects such as lease terms and the rental appli ca tion pro cess. ...
As more urban residents find their housing through online search tools, recent research has theorized the potential for online information to transform and equalize the housing search process. Yet, very little is known about what rental housing information is available online. Using a corpus of millions of geocoded Craigslist advertisements for rental housing across the 50 largest metropolitan statistical areas in the United States merged with census tract-level data from the American Community Survey, we identify and describe the types of information commonly included in listings across different types of neighborhoods. We find that in the online housing market, renters are exposed to fundamentally different types of information depending on the ethnoracial and socioeconomic makeup of the neighborhoods where they are searching.
... At the individual level, "spatial stigma" refers to the "othering" and social exclusion inflicted by the public on people or travelers from specific areas such as the heart of a pandemic outbreak. At the social level, spatial stigma results from social injustice, and researching this topic can help people learn about the social structure and cultural implications of stigmatized places (Besbris, Faber, Rich, & Sharkey, 2018). Guided by the individual level of spatial stigma, this paper aims to investigate the underlying mechanism of spatial stigma brought about by the pandemic. ...
One consequence of an epidemic is the attachment of a spoiled identity to travelers from pandemic areas (hereafter referred to as “travelers”), resulting in severe damage to their psychological health. Guided by the stigmatization process model, this study examines the impact of tourism practitioners' perceptions of illness labeling toward travelers, social identification with travelers, and effects of spatial stigma. The moderating effects of empathy and social distance on this relationship are also analyzed. The results of a questionnaire survey of 754 tourism practitioners showed that illness labeling toward travelers negatively influences social identity with travelers and this leads to spatial stigma. Tourism practitioners’ empathy and the social distance between them and travelers are found to moderate the relationship between illness labeling toward travelers and spatial stigma. Finally, this study further finds that the two moderators are found to be more effective in alleviating social stigma than moral stigma.
... Prior research has used Craigslist to conduct similar field experiments on housing and economic transactions (e.g., Besbris et al. 2015Besbris et al. , 2018Carpusor and Loges 2006;Doleac and Stein 2013;Gaddis and Ghoshal 2015;Hanson and Hawley 2011;Hogan and Berry 2011). Our use of Craigslist as a sampling frame has implications for both the external validity of this research and broader knowledge of discrimination. ...
Survey research finds that millennials have less prejudiced views of racial/ethnic minorities than other generations, leading some to label millennials as postracial. However, attitudinal survey research may be subject to social desirability bias because it documents statements or beliefs instead of actions. Moreover, most audit studies focus on people who make hiring decisions or own rental property and are therefore often older than millennials. This study uses a correspondence audit to investigate discrimination among millennials via “roommate wanted” advertisements. We sent over 4,000 emails and found a tiered pattern of discrimination against Asian (Indian and Chinese), Hispanic, and Black room-seekers. However, whether Asian and Hispanic room-seekers face significant discrimination varies based on whether they use predominantly White first names or traditional first names. Our findings shed light on the future of our racial system, expand our knowledge of discrimination beyond the traditional Black/White binary, and illustrate the persistence of anti-Blackness.
... Prior audit studies of criminal record disclosure have found that it negatively affects employment prospects (Decker et al., 2015;Pager, 2003), housing outcomes (Evans & Porter, 2015;Evans, Blount-Hill, et al., 2019), and college admission (Evans, Szkola, et al., 2019;Stewart & Uggen, 2020 The audit design has only recently been used to explore how criminal stigma impacts dating relationships (e.g., Evans, 2019;Evans & Vega, 2020). This method was used because of its ability to measure observable acts in real-world settings, which is a distinct advantage over survey designs (Besbris et al., 2018). Audit designs have been increasingly used in criminal justice research since Pager (2003) adapted the method from studies of racial disparities in housing access. ...
Stigma associated with prior incarceration could make dating difficult. To test this in online dating, an experimental audit used constructed dating app profiles of Black, Latinx, and White males and females. Experimental and control profiles were identical with the exception of a parole disclosure statement in bios of experimental profiles. Surprisingly, the White female profile disclosing parole was the only one to match with significantly fewer users. We analyzed the racial congruence of matches and found that White parole disclosing profiles were more likely to attract White users and Black and Latinx profiles attracted more heterogeneous users regardless of parole disclosure. The interaction between racial and criminal stigma and implications for relationship prospects among the formerly incarcerated are considered. Although the timing of criminal history disclosure matters, criminal stigma is unique in app-based dating, having more negative effects for Whites, which differs from other social domains.
... To measure discrimination based on socio-economic status, researchers can modify the applicants' addresses (Besbris, Faber, Rich, & Sharkey, 2018;Dahl & Krog, 2018;Tunstall, Green, Lupton, & Watmough, & Bates, 2014), also called the neighborhood signaling effect (Carlsson, Reshid, & Rooth, 2018). That is, they can assign applicants addresses in suburbs associated with low, medium, and high socioeconomic status on average. ...
Resume studies are natural field experiments in which researchers standardize the content of resumes and vary them by individual characteristics. Researchers submit the resumes to job advertisements and compare the employers' responses toward the different resumes to measure labor market discrimination. Despite the robustness of this method, its use has not been fully exploited in human resource management and organizational psychology research. Based on a literature review, we provide an overview of the best practices for resume studies and a step‐by‐step plan to guide researchers. We also explain challenges in the design and implementation of these studies and how they can be addressed. Finally, we suggest avenues for future research and how future studies can contribute to reduce hiring discrimination.
... Spatial stigma has been conceptualised at the individual level and the social level. In the individual dimension, spatial stigma refers to the process by which people who reside in 'vilified and degraded locales' (Keene & Padilla, 2014, p. 393) are reduced from 'normal' people to degraded and discounted ones (Besbris, Faber, Rich, & Sharkey, 2018). They are marked by the stigma of place, which influences their self-identification, daily experiences, mobilities and social interactions and prevents them from being fully accepted by others (Besbris, Faber, Rich, & Sharkey, 2015;Keene & Padilla, 2010;Wacquant, 2007). ...
This study focused on the stigmatisation of an emerging wellness tourism destination due to patient travel for tourism. The concept of spatial stigma was adopted to explore how local residents perceive, experience and manage the particular negative effects of wellness tourism. The study investigated Bama Yao Autonomous County, colloquially known as ‘Bama’, in China, to which many tourists with cancer and other chronic diseases travel. The results showed that the influx of wellness tourists brought significant challenges in this area. The residents reported ambivalent experiences of and feelings about wellness tourism in local communities, and disagreed with the vilification of wellness tourists. However, they were concerned about the potential consequences of wellness tourism. To manage and resist spatial stigma, the residents deliberately separated themselves from the places occupied by wellness tourists. The theoretical contributions and managerial implications of the study are discussed.
In this article we examine how the online rental housing market reflects the desirability of different neighbourhoods in St. Louis, MO, a metropolitan area with long-standing high levels of Black–White residential segregation. Using a large digital corpus of advertisements for rental housing, we first show that adverts in neighbourhoods with more Black residents are less likely to list a neighbourhood name than adverts for available housing units in neighbourhoods with more White residents. Advertisements for housing in neighbourhoods with more Black residents are also more likely to list a different, higher-income neighbourhood name than the one in which they are located. Next, using a survey of St. Louis residents, we find that neighbourhoods with more Black residents are perceived as less desirable by both White and Black St. Louisans. We then employ a pair of survey experiments and find that interest in renting a particular housing unit changes if the advert does not list a neighbourhood name or uses a different neighbourhood name than one commonly associated with its location. Altogether, our findings reveal that postings in online housing markets reflect and reproduce existing racial-spatial patterns and may contribute to the avoidance/stigmatisation of certain neighbourhoods.
Drawing on empirical research with British South Asian (BSA) Muslim women in Oldham and focussing on the embodied intersectional nature of discrimination they face, this paper explores British Muslim women’s experiences of belonging in local spaces. Through a discursive analysis of place, belonging and identity, this paper argues that BSA Muslim women appear as a visible threat to the nation, occupying a contradictory position of both within the local and national but not part of it. Focused on the context of Oldham, a former mill town in the North of England, findings suggest wider hegemonic discourses of Muslim woman as “Other” are inflected by local dynamics and shape discordant everyday experiences. It is argued that Oldham presents a microcosm with which to view the nations complex relationship with its Muslim minority groups and resonates with the current political landscape of rising right-wing populism and Islamophobia.
Algorithmic audits have been embraced as tools to investigate the functioning and consequences of sociotechnical systems. Though the term is used somewhat loosely in the algorithmic context and encompasses a variety of methods, it maintains a close connection to audit studies in the social sciences--which have, for decades, used experimental methods to measure the prevalence of discrimination across domains like housing and employment. In the social sciences, audit studies originated in a strong tradition of social justice and participatory action, often involving collaboration between researchers and communities; but scholars have argued that, over time, social science audits have become somewhat distanced from these original goals and priorities. We draw from this history in order to highlight difficult tensions that have shaped the development of social science audits, and to assess their implications in the context of algorithmic auditing. In doing so, we put forth considerations to assist in the development of robust and engaged assessments of sociotechnical systems that draw from auditing's roots in racial equity and social justice.
Researchers have used audit studies to provide causal evidence of racial discrimination for nearly 60 years. Although audits are an excellent methodological tool to investigate the “what,” “where,” and “when” aspects of racial-ethnic discrimination, audits are less appropriate, by themselves, to investigate the “how” and “why” aspects of racial-ethnic discrimination. In this article, I review why audit studies are necessary to study racial-ethnic discrimination, the evidence from audit studies, and their limitations. I then argue that scholars should adopt a multimethod approach to audit studies to move from documenting the existence of racial-ethnic discrimination to examining how and why racial-ethnic discrimination occurs. Adoption of this multimethod approach will result in a deeper understanding of racial-ethnic discrimination with the potential to shape both opinions and policy surrounding discrimination.
An audit study is a specific type of field experiment primarily used to test for discriminatory behavior when survey and interview questions induce social desirability bas. In this chapter, I first review the language and definitions related to audit studies and encourage adoption of a common language. I then discuss why researchers use the audit method as well as when researchers can and should use this method. Next, I give an overview of the history of audit studies, focusing on major developments and changes in the overall body of work. Finally, I discuss the limitations of correspondence audits and provide some thoughts on future directions.
In this chapter, we summarize the results of an audit study that we conducted in the city of Chicago. Our study examined how race, high school credentials, and academic grades were related to call backs for jobs. We briefly describe the design and results of our study, and then discuss numerous broader issues about audit studies. Our main goal is to help researchers who plan to conduct similar studies in the future by highlighting and reflecting upon challenges, obstacles, and unexplored opportunities in our work. We conclude with several recommendations for future researchers who plan to use an audit design to study labor market stratification.
Researchers increasingly use correspondence audit studies to study racial/ethnic discrimination in employment, housing, and other domains. Although this method provides strong causal evidence of racial/ethnic discrimination, these claims depend on the signal being clearly conveyed through names. Few studies have pretested individual racial and ethnic perceptions of the names used to examine discrimination. The author conducts a survey experiment in which respondents are asked to identify the races or ethnicities they associate with a series of names. Respondents are provided with combinations of Hispanic and Anglo first and last names. Hispanic first names paired with Anglo last names are least likely to be recognized as Hispanic, while all versions of Hispanic first and last names are highly recognized (≥90 percent). The results suggest that researchers must use caution when trying to signal Hispanic ethnicity in experiments, and prior findings from correspondence audits may be biased from poor signals.
Online correspondence audit studies have emerged as the primary method to examine racial discrimination. Although audits use distinctive names to signal race, few studies scientifically examine data regarding the perception of race from names. Different names treated as black or white may be perceived in heterogeneous ways. I conduct a survey experiment that asks respondents to identify the race they associate with a series of names. I alter the first names given to each respondent and inclusion of last names. Names more commonly given by highly educated black mothers (e.g., Jalen and Nia) are less likely to be perceived as black than names given by less educated black mothers (e.g., DaShawn and Tanisha). The results suggest that a large body of social science evidence on racial discrimination operates under a misguided assumption that all black names are alike, and the findings from correspondence audits are likely sensitive to name selection.
We suggest that new forms of family households, especially same-sex couples and single parents, are likely to face discrimination in their interactions with rental markets. Following the contact hypothesis, we hypothesize that the geographic distribution of discrimination is likely to vary. Specifically, in places with more new family households we are likely to find less discrimination against these households. We investigate these issues in the metropolitan area of Vancouver, Canada, through analysis of 1,669 inquiries made about one- and two-bedroom apartments. Using a field experimental design similar to audit studies, we analyze landlord responses to five different two-person household scenarios, including one heterosexual couple, two same-sex couples, and two single parents. Evidence suggests that male same-sex couples, single mothers, and single fathers all face significant discrimination relative to heterosexual couples. The contact hypothesis was supported for male same-sex couples, but not for single parents. This could indicate that single parents are facing discrimination primarily based upon their economic marginalization rather than other forms of prejudice.
The idea of neighbourhood effects implies that the demographic context of poor neighbourhoods instills 'dysfunctional' norms, values and behaviours into youths, triggering a cycle of social pathology. It is argued that neighbourhood effects are part of a wider discourse of inner-city marginality that stereotypes inner-city neighbourhoods. Reflecting upon arguments made in the existing literature, the ideological underpinnings of the idea of neighbourhood effects are revealed. Essentialist conceptions of neighbourhood culture among employers, educators and institutional staff contribute to the neighbourhood effects phenomenon. It is also suggested that researchers and policy-makers must recognise wider forces of cultural differentiation and exclusion.
Examines why stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination are enduring phenomena. Social psychological research, reviewed here in 4 major sections, explains that stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination have (1) some apparently automatic aspects and (2) some socially pragmatic aspects, both of which tend to sustain them. But, as research also indicates, change is possible, for (3) stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination seem individually controllable, and consequently, (4) social structure influences their occurrence. Past and present theoretical approaches to these issues are also discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Since the end of the Civil Rights Movement, large numbers of black people have made their way into settings previously occupied only by whites, though their reception has been mixed. Overwhelmingly white neighborhoods, schools, workplaces, restaurants, and other public spaces remain. Blacks perceive such settings as “the white space,” which they often consider to be informally “off limits” for people like them. Meanwhile, despite the growth of an enormous black middle class, many whites assume that the natural black space is that destitute and fearsome locality so commonly featured in the public media, including popular books, music and videos, and the TV news—the iconic ghetto. White people typically avoid black space, but black people are required to navigate the white space as a condition of their existence.
This book offers practical instruction on the use of audit studies in the social sciences. It features essays from sociologists, economists, and other experts who have employed this powerful and flexible tool. Readers will learn how to implement an audit study to examine a variety of questions in their own research. The essays first discuss situations where audit studies are the most effective. These tools allow researchers to make strong causal claims and explore questions that are often difficult to answer with observational data. Audit studies also stand as the single best way to conduct research on discrimination. The authors highlight what these studies have uncovered about labor market processes in the past decade. The next section gives some guidance on how to design an audit study. The essays cover the difficult task of getting a study through an institutional review board, the technical setup of matching procedures, and statistical power and analysis techniques.
The last part focuses on more advanced aspects. Coverage includes understanding context, what variables may signal, and the use of technology. The book concludes with a discussion of challenges and limitations with an eye towards the future of audit studies.
This book brings together a number of interesting and useful perspectives on these field experiments. Many different kinds of readers will find it valuable, ranging from those interested in getting an overview of the evidence, to researchers looking for guidance on the nuts and bolts of conducting these complex experiments.”
David Neumark, Chancellor’s Professor of Economics at the University of California – Irvine
This volume provides the first deep examination of the audit method, with details on the practical, political, analytical, and theoretical considerations of this research. Social scientists interested in consuming or contributing to this literature will find this volume immensely useful.”
Devah Pager, Professor of Sociology and Public Policy at Harvard University
An audit study is a specific type of field experiment primarily used to test for discriminatory behavior when survey and interview questions induce social desirability bas. In this chapter, I first review the language and definitions related to audit studies and encourage adoption of a common language. I then discuss why researchers use the audit method as well as when researchers can and should use this method. Next, I give an overview of the history of audit studies, focusing on major developments and changes in the overall body of work. Finally, I discuss the limitations of correspondence audits and provide some thoughts on future directions.
This article leverages a unique data set, recently developed regression methods, and qualitative interviews to investigate the multiple ways real estate agents produce housing inequality. We find that the clustering of agents in and around certain neighborhoods correlates positively with house prices. Our results also show a significant relationship between agent concentration and racial segregation. Our qualitative data reveal how agents engage in steering and upselling. The findings enhance our understanding of mechanisms in the housing market, and provide more empirical clarity on the role real estate agents play in asset and place inequality.
Using field experiments, scholars can identify causal effects via randomization while studying people and groups in their naturally occurring contexts. In light of renewed interest in field experimental methods, this review covers a wide range of field experiments from across the social sciences, with an eye to those that adopt virtuous practices, including unobtrusive measurement, naturalistic interventions, attention to realistic outcomes and consequential behaviors, and application to diverse samples and settings. The review covers four broad research areas of substantive and policy interest: first, randomized controlled trials, with a focus on policy interventions in economic development, poverty reduction, and education; second, experiments on the role that norms, motivations, and incentives play in shaping behavior; third, experiments on political mobilization, social influence, and institutional effects; and fourth, experiments on prejudice and discrimination. We discuss methodological issues concerning generalizability and scalability as well as ethical issues related to field experimental methods.Weconclude by arguing that field experiments are well equipped to advance the kind of middle-range theorizing that sociologists value. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Sociology Volume 43 is July 30, 2017. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.
While recent research has stressed the importance of emotions in economic transactions, scholars have generally overlooked the role of market intermediaries in creating and sustaining emotional connections between buyers and particular products. Previous research posits that consumers' goals change as their feelings change, but the question of how these feelings change remains unanswered. Drawing on 27 months of fieldwork observing interactions between real estate agents and homebuyers, this article elaborates three processes by which market intermediaries evoke emotions from buyers: individualized matching, sequencing and highlighting market scarcity. These observations reveal how individual preference and consumption decisions are subject to situational structuring by market intermediaries. Furthermore, this article argues that sales transactions present scholars with untapped opportunities to understand how emotions impact economic transactions, as well as the crucial role that intermediaries play in creating and sustaining these emotions.
The status exchange hypothesis suggests that partners in black/white marriages in the United States trade racial for educational status, indicating strong hierarchical barriers between racial groups. The authors examine trends in status exchange in black/white marriages and cohabitations between 1980 and 2010, a period during which these unions increased from 0.3 percent to 1.5 percent of all young couples. The authors find that status exchange between black men and white women did not decline among either marriages or cohabitations, even as interracial unions became more prevalent. The authors also distinguish two factors driving exchange: (1) the growing probability of marrying a white person as educational attainment increases for both blacks and whites (educational boundaries) and (2) a direct trade of race-by-education between partners (dyadic exchange). Although the theoretical interpretation of exchange has focused on the latter factor, the authors show that status exchange largely emerges from the former.
The Moving to Opportunity (MTO) experiment offered randomly selected families housing vouchers to move from high-poverty housing projects to lower-poverty neighborhoods. We analyze MTO's impacts on children's long-term outcomes using tax data. We find that moving to a lower-poverty neighborhood when young (before age 13) increases college attendance and earnings and reduces single parenthood rates. Moving as an adolescent has slightly negative impacts, perhaps because of disruption effects. The decline in the gains from moving with the age when children move suggests that the duration of exposure to better environments during childhood is an important determinant of children's long-term outcomes. (JEL I31, I38, J13, R23, R38).
Millions of workers are employed in positions that deviate from the full-time, standard employment relationship or work in jobs that are mismatched with their skills, education, or experience. Yet, little is known about how employers evaluate workers who have experienced these employment arrangements, limiting our knowledge about how part-time work, temporary agency employment, and skills underutilization affect workers’ labor market opportunities. Drawing on original field and survey experiment data, I examine three questions: (1) What are the consequences of having a nonstandard or mismatched employment history for workers’ labor market opportunities? (2) Are the effects of nonstandard or mismatched employment histories different for men and women? and (3) What are the mechanisms linking nonstandard or mismatched employment histories to labor market outcomes? The field experiment shows that skills underutilization is as scarring for workers as a year of unemployment, but that there are limited penalties for workers with histories of temporary agency employment. Additionally, although men are penalized for part-time employment histories, women face no penalty for part-time work. The survey experiment reveals that employers’ perceptions of workers’ competence and commitment mediate these effects. These findings shed light on the consequences of changing employment relations for the distribution of labor market opportunities in the “new economy.”
Los Angeles is a city of delicate racial and ethnic balance. As evidenced by the 1965 Watts violence, the 1992 Rodney King riots, and this year's award-winning film Crash, the city's myriad racial groups coexist uneasily together, often on the brink of confrontation. In fact, Los Angeles is highly segregated, with racial and ethnic groups clustered in homogeneous neighborhoods. These residential groupings have profound effects on the economic well-being and quality of life of residents, dictating which jobs they can access, which social networks they can tap in to, and which schools they attend. In Won't You Be My Neighbor? sociologist Camille Zubrinsky Charles explores how modern racial attitudes shape and are shaped by the places in which people live. Using in-depth survey data and information from focus groups with members of L.A.'s largest racial and ethnic groups, Won't You Be My Neighbor? explores why Los Angeles remains a segregated city. Charles finds that people of all backgrounds prefer both racial integration and a critical mass of same-race neighbors. When asked to reveal their preferred level of racial integration, people of all races show a clear and consistent order of preference, with whites considered the most highly desired neighbors and blacks the least desirable. This is even true among recent immigrants who have little experience with American race relations. Charles finds that these preferences, which are driven primarily by racial prejudice and minority-group fears of white hostility, taken together with financial considerations, strongly affect people's decisions about where they live. Still, Charles offers reasons for optimism: over time and with increased exposure to other racial and ethnic groups, people show an increased willingness to live with neighbors of other races. In a racially and ethnically diverse city, segregated neighborhoods can foster distrust, reinforce stereotypes, and agitate inter-group tensions. Won't You Be My Neighbor? zeroes in on segregated neighborhoods to provide a compelling examination of the way contemporary racial attitudes shape, and are shaped by, the places where we live.
This article documents a new macro-segregation, where the locus of racial differentiation resides increasingly in socio-spatial processes at the community or place level. The goal is to broaden the spatial lens for studying segregation, using decennial Census data on 222 metropolitan areas. Unlike previous neighborhood studies of racial change, we decompose metropolitan segregation into its within- and between-place components from 1990 to 2010. This is accomplished with the Theil index (H). Our decomposition of H reveals large post-1990 declines in metropolitan segregation. But, significantly, macro-segregation—the between-place component—has increased since 1990, offsetting declines in the within-place component. The macro component of segregation is also most pronounced and increasing most rapidly among blacks, accounting for roughly one-half of all metro segregation in the most segregated metropolitan areas of the United States. Macro-segregation is least evident among Asians, which suggests other members of these communities (i.e., middle-class or affluent ethnoburbs) have less resistance to Asians relocating there. These results on emerging patterns of macro-segregation are confirmed in fixed-effects models that control for unobserved heterogeneity across metropolitan areas. Unlike most previous studies focused on the uneven distribution of racial and ethnic groups across metropolitan neighborhoods, we show that racial residential segregation is increasingly shaped by the cities and suburban communities in which neighborhoods are embedded.
"The Truly Disadvantagedshould spur critical thinking in many quarters about the causes and possible remedies for inner city poverty. As policy makers grapple with the problems of an enlarged underclass they—as well as community leaders and all concerned Americans of all races—would be advised to examine Mr. Wilson's incisive analysis."—Robert Greenstein,New York Times Book Review "'Must reading' for civil-rights leaders, leaders of advocacy organizations for the poor, and for elected officials in our major urban centers."—Bernard C. Watson,Journal of Negro Education "Required reading for anyone, presidential candidate or private citizen, who really wants to address the growing plight of the black urban underclass."—David J. Garrow,Washington Post Book World Selected by the editors of theNew York Times Book Reviewas one of the sixteen best books of 1987. Winner of the 1988 C. Wright Mills Award of the Society for the Study of Social Problems.
Did mandatory busing programs in the 1970s increase the school achievement of disadvantaged minority youth? Does obtaining a college degree increase an individual's labor market earnings? Did the use of the butterfly ballot in some Florida counties in the 2000 presidential election cost Al Gore votes? If so, was the number of miscast votes sufficiently large to have altered the election outcome? At their core, these types of questions are simple cause-and-effect questions. Simple cause-and-effect questions are the motivation for much empirical work in the social sciences. This book presents a model and set of methods for causal effect estimation that social scientists can use to address causal questions such as these. The essential features of the counterfactual model of causality for observational data analysis are presented with examples from sociology, political science, and economics.
Breaking with the exoticizing cast of public discourse and conventional research, Urban Outcasts takes the reader inside the black ghetto of Chicago and the deindustrializing banlieue of Paris to discover that urban marginality is not everywhere the same. Drawing on a wealth of original field, survey and historical data, Loïc Wacquant shows that the involution of America's urban core after the 1960s is due not to the emergence of an 'underclass', but to the joint withdrawal of market and state fostered by public policies of racial separation and urban abandonment. In European cities, by contrast, the spread of districts of 'exclusion' does not herald the formation of ghettos. It stems from the decomposition of working-class territories under the press of mass unemployment, the casualization of work and the ethnic mixing of populations hitherto segregated, spawning urban formations akin to 'anti-ghettos'.Comparing the US 'Black Belt' with the French 'Red Belt' demonstrates that state structures and policies play a decisive role in the articulation of class, race and place on both sides of the Atlantic. It also reveals the crystallization of a new regime of marginality fuelled by the fragmentation of wage labour, the retrenchment of the social state and the concentration of dispossessed categories in stigmatized areas bereft of a collective idiom of identity and claims-making. These defamed districts are not just the residual 'sinkholes' of a bygone economic era, but also the incubators of the precarious proletariat emerging under neoliberal capitalism.Urban Outcasts sheds new light on the explosive mix of mounting misery, stupendous affluence and festering street violence resurging in the big cities of the First World. By specifying the different causal paths and experiential forms assumed by relegation in the American and the French metropolis, this book offers indispensable tools for rethinking urban marginality and for reinvigorating the public debate over social inequality and citizenship at century's dawn.
We argue that the relative persistence of racial segregation is due, at least in part, to the process of residential search and the perceptions upon which those searches are based—a critical but often-ignored component of the residential sorting process. We examine where Chicago-area residents would “seriously consider” and “never consider” living, finding that community attraction and avoidance are highly racialized. Race most clearly shapes the residential perceptions and preferences of whites, and matters the least to blacks. Latinos would seriously consider moving to numerous neighborhoods, but controls for demographics and distance from the respondents’ home make Latino preferences much like those of whites. Critically, the geography of existing segregation begets further segregation: distance from current community significantly affects perceptions of the communities into which respondents might move. While neighborhood perception may cause persistent segregation, it may also offer hope for integration with appropriate policy interventions.
Racial inequality in economic outcomes, particularly among the college educated, persists throughout US society. Scholars
debate whether this inequality stems from racial differences in human capital (e.g., college selectivity, GPA, college major)
or employer discrimination against black job candidates. However, limited measures of human capital and the inherent difficulties
in measuring discrimination using observational data make determining the cause of racial differences in labor-market outcomes
a difficult endeavor. In this research, I examine employment opportunities for white and black graduates of elite top-ranked
universities versus high-ranked but less selective institutions. Using an audit design, I create matched candidate pairs and
apply for 1,008 jobs on a national job-search website. I also exploit existing birth-record data in selecting names to control
for differences across social class within racialized names. The results show that although a credential from an elite university
results in more employer responses for all candidates, black candidates from elite universities only do as well as white candidates
from less selective universities. Moreover, race results in a double penalty: When employers respond to black candidates,
it is for jobs with lower starting salaries and lower prestige than those of white peers. These racial differences suggest
that a bachelor's degree, even one from an elite institution, cannot fully counteract the importance of race in the labor
market. Thus, both discrimination and differences in human capital contribute to racial economic inequality.
This study draws upon cognitive maps and interviews with 56 residents living in a gentrifying area to examine how residents socially construct neighborhoods. Most minority respondents, regardless of socioeconomic status and years of residency, defined their neighborhood as a large and inclusive spatial area, using a single name and conventional boundaries, invoking the area’s black cultural history, and often directly responding to the alternative way residents defined their neighborhoods. Both long-term and newer white respondents defined their neighborhood as smaller spatial areas and used a variety of names and unconventional boundaries that excluded areas that they perceived to have lower socioeconomic status and more crime. The large and inclusive socially constructed neighborhood was eventually displaced. These findings shed light on how the internal narratives of neighborhood identity and boundaries are meaningfully tied to a broader structure of inequality and shape how neighborhood identities and boundaries change or remain.
Significance
Although previously theorized, virtually no rigorous empirical evidence has demonstrated an impact of neighborhood stigma on individual outcomes. To test for the effects of neighborhood stigma on economic transactions, an experimental audit of an online classified market was conducted in 2013–2014. In this market, advertisements were placed for used iPhones in which the neighborhood of the seller was randomly manipulated. Advertisements identifying the seller as a resident of a disadvantaged neighborhood received significantly fewer responses than advertisements identifying the seller as a resident of an advantaged neighborhood. The results provide strong evidence for an effect of neighborhood stigma on economic transactions, suggesting that individuals carry the stigma of their neighborhood with them as they take part in economic exchanges.
The literature on neighborhood effects frequently is evaluated or interpreted in relation to the question, "Do neighborhoods matter?" We argue that this question has had a disproportionate influence on the field and does not align with the complexity of theoretical models of neighborhood effects or empirical findings that have arisen from the literature. In this article, we focus on empirical work that considers how different dimensions of individuals' residential contexts become salient in their lives, how contexts influence individuals' lives over different timeframes, how individuals are affected by social processes operating at different scales, and how residential contexts influence the lives of individuals in heterogeneous ways. In other words, we review research that examines where, when, why, and for whom do residential contexts matter. Using the large literature on neighborhoods and educational and cognitive outcomes as an example, the research we review suggests that any attempt to reduce the literature to a single answer about whether neighborhoods matter is misguided. We call for a more flexible study of context effects in which theory, measurement, and methods are more closely aligned with the specific mechanisms and social processes under study.
Are housing prices lower in neighborhoods with high concentrations of black residents? If so, is this relationship evidence of pure discrimination, or can it be explained by considering nonracial neighborhood traits? These questions derive their importance from the link between mobility patterns and residential segregation, and the consequent relationship between high levels of segregation and a host of deleterious outcomes. I assess the magnitude and motivations of racial aversion by conducting a hedonic price analysis of geocoded data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. I find clear evidence of lower property values in neighborhoods with relatively high proportions of black residents. However, whether it is blacks' race or their socioeconomic status that affects property values depends on whether housing units are rented or owner-occupied.
Subprime mortgage lending in the early 2000s was a leading cause of the Great Recession. From 2003 to 2006, subprime loans jumped from 7.6% of the mortgage market to 20.1%, with black and Latino borrowers receiving a disproportionate share. This article leveraged the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data and multinomial regression to model home-purchase mortgage lending in 2006, the peak of the housing boom. The findings expose a complicated story of race and income. Consistent with previous research, blacks and Latinos were more likely and Asians less likely to receive subprime loans than whites were. Income was positively associated with receipt of subprime loans for minorities, whereas the opposite was true for whites. When expensive (jumbo) loans were excluded from the sample, regressions found an even stronger, positive association between income and subprime likelihood for minorities, supporting the theory that wealthier minorities were targeted for subprime loans when they could have qualified for prime loans. This finding also provides another example of an aspect of American life in which minorities are unable to leverage higher class position in the same way as whites are. Contrary to previous research, model estimates did not find that borrowers paid a penalty (in increased likelihood of subprime outcome) for buying homes in minority communities.
How do marginalized social categories, such as being black and gay, combine with one another in the production of discrimination? While much extant research assumes that combining marginalized social categories results in a "double disadvantage," I argue that in the case of race and sexual orientation the opposite may be true. This article posits that stereotypes about gay men as effeminate and weak will counteract common negative stereotypes held by whites that black men are threatening and criminal. Thus, I argue that being gay will have negative consequences for white men in the job application process, but that being gay will actually have positive consequences for black men in this realm. This hypothesis is tested using data from a survey experiment in which respondents were asked to evaluate resumes for a job opening where the race and sexual orientation of the applicants were experimentally manipulated. The findings contribute to important theoretical debates about stereotypes, discrimination, and intersecting social identities.
The Moving to Opportunity (MTO) housing experiment has proven to be an important intervention not just in the lives of the poor, but in social science theories of neighborhood effects. Competing causal claims have been the subject of considerable disagreement, culminating in the debate between Clampet-Lundquist and Massey (2008) and Ludwig et al. (2008). This paper assesses the debate by clarifying analytically distinct questions posed by neighborhood-level theories, reconceptualizing selection bias as a fundamental social process worthy of study in its own right rather than as a statistical nuisance, and reconsidering the scientific method of experimentation, and hence causality, in the social world of the city. I also analyze MTO and independent survey data from Chicago to examine trajectories of residential attainment. Although MTO provides crucial leverage for estimating neighborhood effects on individuals, as proponents rightly claim, I demonstrate the implications imposed by a stratified urban structure and how MTO simultaneously provides a new window on the social reproduction of concentrated inequality.
This article synthesizes findings from a wide range of empirical research into how neighborhoods affect families and children. It lays out a conceptual framework for understanding how neighborhoods may affect people at differ-ent life stages. It then identifies methodological challenges, summarizes past research findings, and suggests priorities for future work. Despite a growing body of evidence that neighborhood conditions play a role in shaping individual outcomes, serious methodological challenges remain that suggest some caution in interpreting this evidence. Moreover, no consensus emerges about which neighborhood characteristics affect which outcomes, or about what types of families may be most influenced by neighborhood condi-tions. Finally, existing studies provide little empirical evidence about the causal mechanisms through which neighborhood environment influences individual outcomes. To be useful to policy makers, future empirical research should tackle the critical question of how and for whom neighborhood matters.
Investigating the role of preferences in causing persistent patterns of racial residential segregation in the United States has a long history. In this paper, we bring a new perspective – and new data from the 2004 Detroit Area Study – to the question of how best to characterize black and white preferences toward living in neighborhoods with people of different races. White and black residents of the Detroit metropolitan area (n = 734) were asked in an area probability sample survey about their evaluations of 33 actual communities throughout their metro area. These evaluations are used as an indirect measure of racial residential preferences by viewing how race – both of the respondent and of the community – shapes them. We find modest racial agreement about which communities would be "seriously considered" and "never considered" as a place to live, but by and large perceptions of the metropolis are racialized. Whites are influenced by the percentage white in a community (net of the community's social class characteristics) and very unlikely to consider communities where they are anything but the strong majority. African Americans are also influenced by race, but in different ways and less fundamentally: 1.) Communities with high percentages of African Americans are among those most likely to be "seriously considered," but so are communities with just a handful of African Americans; 2.) African Americans are less likely to "never consider" all communities, and more likely than whites to consider both communities where they are in the majority and in the minority; 3.) African Americans are unaffected by a community's percent white net of community social class characteristics. We place these results in the context of the debate about racial residential preferences, arguing for the importance of grounding our understanding – and measures – of racial residential preferences in the context of real urban landscapes.
Neighbourhood effects research is at a crossroads. After decades of qualitative and quantitative empirical studies aiming to determine how much neighbourhoods affect life chances, we seem nowhere near a coherent answer. This chapter identifies three concerns from the literature. Firstly, most quantitative empirical studies into neighbourhood effects most likely suffer from selection bias. Secondly, an entire generation of researchers concerned themselves asking if neighbourhoods matter and by how much, rather than asking under what circumstances do they matter? Thirdly, there is lack of clarity concerning how much progress has been made determining which mechanisms behind neighbourhood effects matter the most. This chapter draws lessons from the current literature and by using a case study from Chicago. It is suggested that future research should expect and explain heterogeneity and needs to move away from investigating average neighbourhood effects. It is also emphasised that future work should better integrate ethnographic research into the quantitative empirical research program. Ethnographic research has the capacity to help explain the often contradictory results of previous neighbourhood effect studies, and to generate hypotheses for future studies. © 2012 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. All rights reserved.
As rental markets move online, techniques to assess racial/ethnic rental housing discrimination should keep pace. We demonstrate an audit method for assessing discrimination in Toronto's online rental market. As a multicultural city with less segregation and more diverse visible minorities than most US cities, Toronto lends itself to multiname audit studies. We sent 5,620 fictitious email inquiries to landlords offering apartments on Craigslist, a popular Internet classifieds service. Each landlord received one inquiry each from five racialized groups-Caucasian, Black, E/SE Asian, Muslim/Arabic, and Jewish. In our experiments, "opportunity denying" discrimination (exclusion through nonresponse) was 10 times as common as "opportunity diminishing" discrimination (e.g., additional rental conditions). We estimate Muslim/Arabic-racialized men face the greatest resistance, with discrimination occurring in 12 percent of experiments. The level of discrimination is modest but significant for Asian men (7 percent), Blacks (5 percent), and Muslim/Arabic women (5 percent). Discrimination was evenly spread throughout the city.
The traditional black-white color line in the American metropolis is being replaced by a more complex pattern of color lines involving multiple groups with different racial and ethnic origins. The consequences are positive in some respects, but they do not overcome the continuing barriers to equal opportunity. The degree of segregation has receded from the near-apartheid that was created in the black ghettos of Northern cities in the middle decades of the last century. Yet the experience of segregation continues to impact blacks of all economic classes. Today's color lines also involve Hispanics and Asians. The multiethnic metropolis is fostering a degree of neighborhood diversity that used to be quite rare. At the same time all-minority areas, now including blacks, Hispanics, and sometimes Asians, continue to be reproduced, and the disparities in community resources between white and minority neighborhoods remain deeply entrenched.
In the minds of many Americans, the ghetto is where “the black people live,” symbolizing an impoverished, crime-prone, drug-infested, and violent area of the city. Aided by the mass media and popular culture, this image of the ghetto has achieved an iconic status, and serves as a powerful source of stereotype, prejudice, and discrimination. The history of racism in America, along with the ascription of “ghetto” to anonymous blacks, has burdened blacks with a negative presumption they must disprove before they can establish mutually trusting relationships with others. The poorest blacks occupy a caste-like status, and for the black middle class, contradictions and dilemmas of status are common, underscoring the racial divide and exacerbating racial tensions.
Employing an alternative methodology and new data, the authors address the debate concerning the underlying causes of racial residential segregation. Are white Americans avoiding racially mixed neighborhoods because they do not want to live with nonwhites? And if so, is this the case independent of factors with which race is associated, such as crime levels or housing values? An over-the-telephone factorial experiment addresses these issues, measuring variables that shape white Americans' choice of purchasing a home. Based on a national, random-digit-dial survey of 1,663 white Americans, the effects of African American, Asian, and Hispanic neighborhood composition on whites' likelihood of buying a house are explored, as well as the other variables for which race may serve as a proxy. Results indicate that Asian and Hispanic neighborhood composition do not matter to whites. Black neighborhood composition, however, does matter, and matters even more for white Americans with children under age 18. The effect of black composition is net of the variables that whites offer as the primary reasons they do not want to live with blacks. The implications of these findings for segregation trends and for future research are considered.
This article considers the relationship between employers' attitudes toward hiring exoffenders and their actual hiring behavior. Using data from an experimental audit study of entry-level jobs matched with a telephone survey of the same employers, the authors compare employers' willingness to hire black and white ex-offenders, as represented both by their self-reports and by their decisions in actual hiring situations. Employers who indicated a greater likelihood of hiring ex-offenders in the survey were no more likely to hire an ex-offender in practice. Furthermore, although the survey results indicated no difference in the likelihood of hiring black versus white ex-offenders, audit results show large differences by race. These comparisons suggest that employer surveys-even those using an experimental design to control for social desirability bias-may be insufficient for drawing conclusions about the actual level of hiring discrimination against stigmatized groups.
For many decades, it has been argued that the
U.S. remains racially segregated because of discrimination in the
real-estate market reflecting whites' desire to isolate themselves from
African Americans. The only modest declines in black-white segregation
since the prohibition of such discrimination in 1968 have provoked a
competing hypothesis: residential segregation persists because blacks
prefer to live in racially isolated neighborhoods and are reluctant
to live in largely white areas. These ideas have not been subject to
empirical scrutiny.
We use open- and closed-ended survey data from more than 2,000 African
Americans in the Multi-City Study of Urban Inequality to examine
blacks' preferences and the important related issue of what drives
those preferences. We find that African Americans overwhelmingly prefer
50-50 areas, a density far too high for most whites — but their
preferences are driven not by solidarity or neutral ethnocentrism but
by fears of white hostility. Moreover, almost all blacks are willing to
move into largely white areas if there is a visible black presence. White
preferences also play a key role, since whites are reluctant to move
into neighborhoods with more than a few African Americans.
Social science research on stigma has grown dramatically over the past two decades, particularly in social psychology, where researchers have elucidated the ways in which people construct cognitive categories and link those categories to stereotyped beliefs. In the midst of this growth, the stigma concept has been criticized as being too vaguely defined and individually focused. In response to these criticisms, we define stigma as the co-occurrence of its components–labeling, stereotyping, separation, status loss, and discrimination–and further indicate that for stigmatization to occur, power must be exercised. The stigma concept we construct has implications for understanding several core issues in stigma research, ranging from the definition of the concept to the reasons stigma sometimes represents a very persistent predicament in the lives of persons affected by it. Finally, because there are so many stigmatized circumstances and because stigmatizing processes can affect multiple domains of people's li...
