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Hiring discrimination against foreigners in multi-ethnic labour markets: Does recruiter nationality matter? Evidence from a factorial survey experiment in Luxembourg
Abstract
A bulk of experimental research has pointed to ethnic hiring discrimination as a key driver of social inequalities in multi-ethnic labour markets. However, the role of recruiter nationality as possible moderators of ethnic hiring discrimination has been widely neglected. Against this background, this study examines the role of recruiter nationality in hiring discrimination involving foreign applicants. I used data from a recent factorial survey experiment conducted with real recruiters in Luxembourg ( N= 677 from 113 recruiters). Respondents rated six experimentally manipulated profiles of fictitious applicants for jobs in different occupational fields. Luxembourg is a relevant case due to its multi-ethnic workforce at various levels of the vertical strata of labour market positions, which allows to test the role of ethnic homophily in hiring decisions. The results suggested that foreign recruiters discriminate less against foreign applicants than native recruiters do. Furthermore, the effect of being a foreign applicant was more negative if the applicant’s nationality matched the recruiter’s nationality. However, none of the observed differences in effects were statistically significant. Elucidating how both native and non-native recruiters make hiring decisions based on applicants’ nationality contributes to a better understanding of how social inequalities emerge and intensify in multi-ethnic labour markets.
... The results of Grosser's (2023) study yielded that university students were attracted to prestigious companies more than non-prestigious companies, and to remote work opportunities more than in-office opportunities, yet respondents were in general attracted to prestigious companies offering in-office positions rather than nonprestigious companies with remote work model. ...
... Previous papers have investigated the relationship between the company prestige, remote work, and job attractiveness (Grosser, 2023), others have also researched the relation between salary and remote work in terms of job attractiveness (Moens et al., 2022). In this paper, we want to study job attractiveness in terms of three dimensions: the company size, the salary being above or below market average, and the location from where the job is performed, remote or onsite. ...
The covid19 pandemic has brought about many changes that although thought of temporary were permanent. One notable change is the change in the labor market and the working models. While the covid19 required distance and low human mobility the economic wheel had to keep turning in one way or another. Ignoring the
fact that many sectors had to continue attending their work physically like the production and health sectors, we would like to understand further this new working model that is here to stay.
In this paper we are attempting to understand the attractiveness of job positions based on three features;
the job location; in terms of whether it is remote or onsite, the company size: holding large companies as a reflection of prestigious and multinational companies compared to small start-ups, and the salary offered as of whether this salary is above or below market wage. Focusing on these variables we would like to direct our attention to understanding the importance of remote work on setting a specific job position attractive and whether it has a higher effect on the individuals’ impressions towards jobs when compared to the salary and the company size.
... Focusing solely on nationality,Gutfleisch (2021) found, using the same data, that although both foreign and Luxembourgish recruiters evaluated foreign applicants negatively, foreign recruiters seemed to discriminate less often than Luxembourgish recruiters. Thus, the results also suggested that similarity between recruiters and applicants might matter. ...
Firms in border regions typically deal with heterogeneous applicant pools that include both (foreign) domestic workers and cross-border commuters. However, we know little about recruiters' workforce needs and hiring practices in cross-border labour markets. Based on a survey of real recruiters in Luxembourg, this study presents experimental and qualitative findings on the role of country of residence in recruiters' hiring intentions against foreigners. Luxembourg presents a rarely studied but highly relevant case for hiring practices owing to a combination of a strong economy, strict labour market regulations, and a transnational workforce. Drawing on data from a factorial survey experiment, we found no discrimination against Portuguese and French applicants living in Luxembourg. Yet, (highly skilled) cross-border workers from France and Germany faced disadvantages regarding recruiters' hiring intentions. However, differences in effect sizes between foreigners and cross-border workers were small and not statistically significant. When further asked about the potential challenges of recruiting in Luxembourg's cross-border labour market, respondents expressed concerns about flexibility, poor social fit, and cultural differences in hiring foreign and cross-border employees. Overall, our study provides further points of reference for studies on hiring intentions in cross-border labour markets across Europe.
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.
Comparing levels of discrimination across countries can provide a window into large-scalesocial and political factors often described as the root of discrimination. Because of difficulties inmeasurement, however, little is established about variation in hiring discrimination across countries.We address this gap through a formal meta-analysis of 97 field experiments of discriminationincorporating more than 200,000 job applications in nine countries in Europe and North America. Wefind significant discrimination against nonwhite natives in all countries in our analysis; discriminationagainst white immigrants is present but low. However, discrimination rates vary strongly by country:In high-discrimination countries, white natives receive nearly twice the callbacks of nonwhites; inlow-discrimination countries, white natives receive about 25 percent more. France has the highestdiscrimination rates, followed by Sweden. We find smaller differences among Great Britain, Canada,Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, the United States, and Germany. These findings challenge severalconventional macro-level theories of discrimination.
Field experiments have provided ample evidence of ethnic and racial discrimination in the labour market. Less is known about how discrimination varies in multi-ethnic societies, where the ethnic composition of populations is different across locations. Inter-group contact and institutional arrangements for ethnic minorities can mitigate the sense of group threat and reduce discrimination. To provide empirical evidence of this, we conduct a field experiment of ethnic discrimination in Russia with a sample of over 9,000 job applications. We compare ethnically homogeneous cities and cities with ethnically mixed populations and privileged institutional status of ethnic minorities. We find strong discrimination against visible minorities in the former but much weaker discrimination in the latter. These findings demonstrate how institutions and historical contexts of inter-group relations can affect ethnic prejudice and discrimination.
Factorial survey experiments have been widely used to study recruiters’ hiring intentions. Respondents are asked to evaluate hypothetical applicant descriptions, which are experimentally manipulated, for hypothetical job descriptions. However, this methodology has been criticized for putting respondents in hypothetical situations that often only partially correspond to real-life hiring situations. It has been proposed that this criticism can be overcome by sampling real-world vacancies and the recruiters responsible for filling them. In such an approach, only the applicants’ descriptions are hypothetical; respondents are asked about a real hiring problem, which might increase internal and external validity. In this study, we test whether using real vacancies triggers more valid judgments compared to designs based on hypothetical vacancies. The growing number of factorial survey experiments conducted in employer studies makes addressing this question relevant, both for methodological and practical reasons. However, despite the potential implications for the validity of data, it has been neglected so far. We conducted a factorial survey experiment in Luxembourg, in which respondents evaluated hypothetical applicants referring either to a currently vacant position in their company or to a hypothetical job. Overall, we found little evidence for differences in responses by the design of the survey experiment. However, the use of real vacancies might prove beneficial depending on the research interest. We hope that our comparison of designs using real and hypothetical vacancies contributes to the emerging methodological inquiry on the possibilities and limits of using factorial survey experiments in research on hiring.
We draw on a field experiment conducted in five European countries to analyze hiring discrimination on the basis of gender and race. We adopt an intersectional perspective and relate existing theories on gender and racial discrimination to recent work on the gendered stereotype content of different races. We find that employers prefer hiring white women over men for female-typed jobs. By contrast, women of color do not have any advantage over men of the same race. Moreover, black and Middle Eastern men encounter the strongest racial discrimination in male-typed jobs, where it is possible that their stereotyped masculinity, made salient by the occupational context, is perceived as threatening. Overall, we argue that the employment chances of applicants of different gender and racial backgrounds are highly dependent on their perceived congruence (or lack thereof) with the feminine or masculine traits of the job they apply to.
In this study we compare rates of discrimination across German-born applicants from thirty-five ethnic groups in which various racial and religious treatment groups are embedded, this study allows us to better distinguish taste and statistical sources of discrimination, and to assess the relative importance of ethnicity, phenotype and religious affiliation as signals triggering discrimination. The study is based on applications to almost 6,000 job vacancies with male and female applicants in eight occupations across Germany. We test taste discrimination based on cultural value distance between groups against statistical discrimination based on average education levels and find that discrimination is mostly driven by the former. Based on this pattern, ethnic, racial and religious groups whose average values are relatively distant from the German average face the strongest discrimination. By contrast, employers do not treat minority groups with value patterns closer to Germany’s different from ethnic German applicants without a migration background.
Focusing on birthplace (foreign vs. domestic) and origin group (European vs. Middle Eastern or African), this article examines the effects of cultural distance signals on discrimination against ethnic minority job applicants. Drawing on a cross-nationally harmonised correspondence test (N = 5780), we investigate how employers in five Western European destination countries (Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, and the U.K.) respond to job applications from majority and minority group members, with minority job applicants being either very similar (domestic-born and/or European origin) to the majority population or rather different (foreign-born and/or Middle Eastern/African). Our results are generally consistent with taste-based discrimination theory. Employers pay attention to signals of cultural distance, which results in particularly high levels of discrimination against foreign-born minorities and against minorities originating from Middle Eastern and African countries. Although origin group has a stronger effect on employer responses than birthplace, they jointly exert an additive effect. This results in particularly low labour market chances for foreign-born minorities of Middle Eastern and African origin. Separate country analyses, however, reveal important country differences, both with respect to the size of the minority penalty and the joint effect of birthplace and origin group.
In this article, we study how attitudes toward the integration of immigrants (multiculturalism and
assimilation) are formed through the interplay between immigration-related threat perceptions,
intergroup contacts, and the different migratory backgrounds of residents in a host country. The analysis is conducted using Multiple Group Structural Equation Modeling on data from the 2008 Luxembourg European Values Study. Our findings indicate that stronger perceptions of threat are related to more support for assimilation among all residents and to less support for multiculturalism among native residents and culturally close immigrants. More contact with natives is associated with more support for assimilation among culturally close immigrants and
with more threat perceptions among culturally distant immigrants.
We seek to understand why immigrants encounter labor market integration difficulties and thus propose a model that combines ethnic and occupational rankings to predict which candidates employers will favor for particular occupations (a matching hierarchies model). In a Swiss survey experiment, we found that employers’ evaluations of non-natives follow sociocultural distance perceptions and that a non-native background is a disadvantage mainly in high-skilled occupations. In low-skilled occupations, having an immigrant background is less detrimental. In elucidating disadvantage patterns, we conclude that it is important to consider contextual factors (occupational hierarchies) that may change the nature of nationality-based discrimination.
Types of discrimination are usually distinguished by economic theory in statistical and taste-based. Using a correspondence experiment, we analyze which of the two affects Italian labor market the most. In this respect, we studied the difference in discrimination reserved to first- and second-generation immigrants, taking gender differences into account. Even if we want to admit a rational discrimination based on perceived productivity differences (statistical discrimination) against first-generation immigrants (concerning language and education gaps), the same would not be reasonable for second-generation ones. Since they are born and educated in Italy, where they have always lived, the associated discrimination must be taste-based.
This chapter aims to provide an exhaustive list of all (i.e. 90) correspondence studies on hiring discrimination that were conducted between 2005 and 2016 (and could be found through a systematic search). For all these studies, the direction of the estimated treatment effects is tabulated. In addition, a discussion of the findings by discrimination ground is provided.
Luxembourg exhibits strong transnational traits within its skills regime, defying any neat fit with existing educational typologies. It is characterised by its high-skill economy, cross-cultural characteristics, and central location within the European Union. As such, Luxembourg has developed a hybrid strategy of responding to labour market challenges, and by that, to skills development. Our institutionalist analysis finds that Luxembourg is involved in transnational skills development in three complementary ways: (a) employers in Luxembourg extensively recruit skilled workers at the European and global levels, but also (b) heavily rely on the distinct skills sets of cross-border commuters from the neighbouring regions of Belgium, France, and Germany (the Greater Region). Furthermore, (c) Luxembourg combines institutional elements of these neighbouring countries – representing distinct models of capitalism and welfare – within its own education system. In combining the specific strengths of different national skills regimes, institutional bricolage represents a core feature of Luxembourg’s highly stratified system of skill formation. Our analytical framework refers to two major comparative political economy perspectives, namely the welfare state and varieties of capitalism approaches, to analyse how Luxembourg has responded to deindustrialisation by creating a domestic transnational labour market.
Weblink: https://doi.org/10.1080/13639080.2017.1408954
The paper exploits large-scale administrative data to analyse trends in male earnings inequality in Luxembourg during 20 years of rapid economic growth, industrial redevelopment and massive inflow of foreign workers. A detailed error components model is estimated to identify persistent and transitory components of (the trends of) log-earnings variance and to disentangle the contributions to it of native, immigrant and cross-border workers. The model is flexible and allows for a high degree of individual, age, time and cohort heterogeneity. We observe a surprising stability in overall earnings inequality as a result of more complex underlying changes, with marked increases in persistent inequality (except among natives), a growing contribution of foreigners and a decrease in earnings instability (primarily for natives).
This article examines national identity construal processes within the case study context of Luxembourg. Building on research highlighting the modalities of generalization from case studies, I present the country case that is Luxembourg. This social universe has a foreign population percentage of 47% and what is considered majority and minority becomes increasingly fluid. The migration process itself is fluid, ranging from daily migration, to medium-term stays, return visits and permanent immigration including uptake of citizenship. Within such a fluid environment, where national borders are permeable at the physical level of crossing borders and (national) societies are nested within societies, culture contact is a permanent feature in daily life. Nationality becomes a salient feature as culture contact tends to prompt reflection, resulting in questioning and (re-)negotiation of national identity. This affects the native population as well as the diverse immigrant population – with diversity going beyond the level of country of origin. Many individuals are also of mixed nationality and some examples for the construal process of national identity will be provided, illustrating how national identity is negotiated at individual level. Like a periscope, this country let s us adjust mirrors, permitting us to observe modes of identity construal which would otherwise be obstructed from the field of view. The case study that is Luxembourg allows us to look at the micro-setting of the construction, potentially of something new.
In this article, we analyse the ritual of null hypothesis significance testing among the European sociologists.
The focus is on the distinction between statistical significance and substantive, sociological
significance. We review all articles published in the European Sociological Review between 2000–
2004 and 2010–2014 that use regression models (N ¼ 356). Our main aim is to determine whether the
authors discuss the effect size of their findings and distinguish substantive from statistical significance.
We apply a five-item questionnaire to each article and find that about half of the articles erroneously
interpret a statistically insignificant coefficient as a zero effect, while only one in three engage in
a discussion of the substantive meaning of the effect sizes. Moreover, our findings show a negative
trend in the practice of significance testing over the past 15 years. These results are similar to those of a comparable review in the field of economics. We conclude by providing a set of recommendations on how to reduce the misuse of significance testing in sociological research, through an informed benchmarking of the findings.
Mit seinen drei Verwaltungssprachen und seiner kosmopolitischen Bevölkerung ist Luxemburg ein gern benutztes Fallbeispiel für soziolinguistische und sprachenpolitische Studien. Viele Fragen sind dabei jedoch bislang offen geblieben. Vor dem Hintergrund einer Volkszählung gelingt es diesem Band, viele Leerstellen zu füllen: Wer spricht welche Sprachen zu Hause, in der Schule und am Arbeitsplatz? Wie groß sind die jeweiligen Sprachgemeinschaften und welche Sprachen dominieren in welchen Berufen und in welchen Regionen? Wie hoch ist der Anteil der Migrantinnen und Migranten, die Luxemburgisch sprechen?
Inequalities in education according to immigrant and social origin are analysed by examining attainment at the start and end of lower secondary school (college), the track choices made at upper secondary school (lycée), and qualifications obtained among a panel of students who entered year 6 in 1995 in France. The inequalities affecting immigrants' children are forged in primary school, but get no worse afterwards. Examining both absolute and relative data, the educational difficulties of these young people are confirmed, more so for boys than for girls. However, the difference between these students and their French-origin counterparts from the same socio-occupational background is quite small. Leaving school unqualified is the result of failing examinations in the case of students of North African origin, while those of Portuguese origin leave school to enter the labour market. Although over half of the student cohort obtains the baccalauréat, this is often a low-status technology or vocational baccalauréat. The gender gap in achievement is higher among students of immigrant background. We thus observe a differentiation in educational trajectory by origin and a gender polarization.
Employing a vignette experiment, we test the empirical importance of key attitudes underlying the models of taste-based and statistical discrimination in explaining ethnic hiring discrimination. We find that employer concern that co-workers and customers prefer collaborating with natives drives discrimination.
This paper investigates the importance of ethnic homophily in the hiring discrimination process. Our evidence comes from a correspondence test performed in France in which we use three different kinds of ethnic identification: French sounding names, North African sounding names, and “foreign” sounding names with no clear ethnic association. Within the groups of men and women, we show that all non-French applicants are equally discriminated against when compared to French applicants. Moreover, we find direct evidence of ethnic homophily: recruiters with European names are more likely to call back French named applicants. These results show the importance of favoritism for in-group members. To test for the effect of information about applicant’s skills, we also add a signal related to language ability in all resumes sent to half the job offers. The design allows to uniquely identify the effect of the language signal by gender. Although the signal inclusion significantly reduces the discrimination against non-French females, it is much weaker for male minorities.
Many researchers and journals place a strong emphasis on the sign and statistical significance of effects—but often there is very little emphasis on the substantive and practical significance of the findings. As Long and Freese (2006, Regression Models for Categorical Dependent Variables Using Stata [Stata Press]) show, results can often be made more tangible by computing predicted or expected values for hypothetical or prototypical cases. Stata 11 introduced new tools for making such calculations—factor variables and the margins command. These can do most of the things that were previously done by Stata's own adjust and mfx commands, and much more.
Unfortunately, the complexity of the margins syntax, the daunting 50-page reference manual entry that describes it, and a lack of understanding about what margins offers over older commands that have been widely used for years may have dissuaded some researchers from examining how the margins command could benefit them.
In this article, therefore, I explain what adjusted predictions and marginal effects are, and how they can contribute to the interpretation of results. I further explain why older commands, like adjust and mfx, can often produce incorrect results, and how factor variables and the margins command can avoid these errors. The relative merits of different methods for setting representative values for variables in the model (marginal effects at the means, average marginal effects, and marginal effects at representative values) are considered. I shows how the marginsplot command (introduced in Stata 12) provides a graphical and often much easier means for presenting and understanding the results from margins, and explain why margins does not present marginal effects for interaction terms.
Minorities' attitudes can be compared to attitudes of fellow citizen within the host country as well as to attitudes of the motherland. Given the heterogeneity of Luxembourg's minority groups, this country is a relevant example case in which the comparison needs to involve answering a two-folded question. First, the authors analyze the level of measurement equivalence, that is, the extent to which different groups can be compared. Second, the authors examine whether ethnic-cultural groups within Luxembourg resemble citizens from their native country more than their country of residence. Using European Values Study (EVS) data from 2008 the authors demonstrate different types of outcomes. Results indicate that cultural background is more important than national context in the case of culturally more distant minorities to Luxembourg's resident population and that national setting is the prevailing factor when minorities are from neighboring countries. The effect of a common national setting is also important with regards to the issue of measurement equivalence, where it contributes to greater comparability of intranational, cross-ethnic comparisons.
Using a survey experiment, we test whether discrimination against job candidates with a second-generation migration background varies by signaling either assimilation into the host society or attachment to the country of origin. In our study, Swiss HR managers evaluate descriptions of fictitious CVs in which we vary the origin, language proficiency, and extracurricular activity of the jobseekers with and without a cultural context. The findings reveal that candidates with Polish- or Turkish-sounding names are evaluated worse than candidates with Swiss- or Spanish-sounding names. The effect of signaling attachment to the native and host country culture depends on the perceived distance of the cultural background. A candidate with a Spanish-sounding name who speaks the native language and acts as a chairperson in a Spanish cultural association is granted a better evaluation by employers. Regarding the Polish applicants, neither signaling attachment to the country of origin nor assimilation to the Swiss background makes a significant difference. In contrast, regarding applicants with Turkish-sounding names, signaling assimilation improves employers’ evaluation of their profile, whereas signaling attachment to the Turkish culture either by an extra curricula activity or indicating proficiency in both the Swiss and Turkish languages leads to significantly worse evaluations. We conclude that especially for individuals stemming from origins that are perceived as culturally distant, signaling attachment to the culture of origin may result in a higher occurrence of discrimination, even when the signal indicates higher human- or social-capital of the jobseeker.
Field experiments represent the gold standard for determining whether discrimination occurs. Britain has a long and distinguished history of field experiments of racial discrimination in the labour market, with pioneering studies dating back to 1967 and 1969. This article reviews all the published reports of these and subsequent British field experiments of racial discrimination in the labour market, including new results from a 2016/17 field experiment. The article finds enduring contours of racial discrimination in Britain. Firstly, there is an enduring pattern of modest discrimination against white minorities of European heritage in contrast to much greater risks of discrimination faced by the main non‐white groups, suggesting a strong racial component to discrimination. Secondly, while there is some uncertainty about the magnitude of the risks facing applicants with Chinese and Indian names, the black Caribbean, black African and Pakistani groups all face substantial and very similar risks of discrimination. Thirdly, there is no significant diminution in risks of discrimination over time either for Caribbeans or for South Asians as a whole. These results are broadly in line with those from the ethnic penalties literature, suggesting that discrimination is likely to be a major factor explaining the disproportionately and enduringly high unemployment rates of ethnic minorities.
While there is ample evidence of discrimination against ethnic minority candidates in hiring, most existing studies have focused on stigmatised immigrant groups. Using a correspondence test to ethnic discrimination in the Swiss labour market is enumerated, varying the a priori stigma of the immigrant groups. The field experiment compares candidates with Swiss names against candidates with German, Kosovar and Turkish names in a paired correspondence test spanning four occupations. Results from attitude research in Switzerland lead to the expectation that these groups will face different rates of discrimination, with candidates with Kosovar names being the most stigmatised and candidates with German names facing the least discrimination. Between October 2017 and April 2018, applications were sent in response to 560 real vacancies in the German-speaking area of Switzerland. Across the minority groups, the relative call back rate was 1.13, meaning that minority candidates have to write 1.13 times as many applications as majority candidates to be invited for a job interview. The relative call back rates differ by the ethnic origin: Germans experience almost no discrimination across all occupations, Turks face a relative call back rate of 1.14, and Kosovars encounter the highest relative call back rate across occupations (1.26). We conclude that existing studies may give the false impression that all immigrants suffer from substantive discrimination in the labour market because they focus on stigmatised groups.
Understanding whether labor market discrimination explains inferior labor market outcomes for many groups has drawn the attention of labor economists for decades—at least since the publication of Gary Becker’s The Economics of Discrimination in 1957. The decades of research on discrimination in labor markets began with a regression-based “decomposition” approach, asking whether raw wage or earnings differences between groups—which might constitute prima facie evidence of discrimination—were in fact attributable to other productivity-related factors. Subsequent research—responding in large part to limitations of the regression-based approach—moved on to other approaches, such as using firm-level data to estimate both marginal productivity and wage differentials. In recent years, however, there has been substantial growth in experimental research on labor market discrimination—although the earliest experiments were done decades ago. Some experimental research on labor market discrimination takes place in the lab. But far more of it is done in the field, which makes this particular area of experimental research unique relative to the explosion of experimental economic research more generally. This paper surveys the full range of experimental literature on labor market discrimination, places it in the context of the broader research literature on labor market discrimination, discusses the experimental literature from many different perspectives (empirical, theoretical, and policy), and reviews both what this literature has taught us thus far, and what remains to be done.
The manner in which social categories combine to produce inequality lies at the heart of scholarship on social stratification. To date, scholars have largely pointed to two primary ways that negatively stereotyped categories may aggregate: 1) additive effects, whereby one category has similar consequences across the other category, and 2) amplified congruence, whereby a secondary category exacerbates the negative effects of the first category. This article develops an alternative potential aggregation pattern-muted congruence-which posits that when individuals evaluate others that occupy multiple social positions about which stereotypes are highly congruent, such as being black and being unemployed, the additional category membership will have limited influence over the ultimate evaluation. Using evidence from a field experiment, where fictitious applications were submitted to real job openings, I examine which aggregation pattern most accurately reflects how race and unemployment shape actual hiring decisions. In line with predictions from the "muted congruence" perspective, the findings indicate that racial discrimination is prominent, but that there are limited additional negative effects of unemployment for African American workers. I conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for understanding the aggregation of social categories in the production of inequality. © The Author(s) 2018. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. All rights reserved.
We seek to understand why immigrants encounter labor market integration difficulties and thus propose a model that combines ethnic and occupational rankings to predict which candidates employers will favor for particular occupations (a matching hierarchies model). In a Swiss survey experiment, we found that employers’ evaluations of non-natives follow sociocultural distance perceptions and that a non-native background is a disadvantage mainly in high-skilled occupations. In low-skilled occupations, having an immigrant background is less detrimental. In elucidating disadvantage patterns, we conclude that it is important to consider contextual factors (occupational hierarchies) that may change the nature of nationality-based discrimination.
Owing to the recent recession, the German apprenticeship model is once again praised for smoothing out school-to-work transitions. In line with the social policy shift of favouring education as a key means to combat youth unemployment, European Union (EU) recommendations and German national policies encourage young Southern and Eastern EU citizens to apply for apprenticeship training abroad. Yet, young people wanting to go abroad are not only mobile young people but also immigrants. Given the prevalence of ethnic disparities in the German apprenticeship system, the question arises whether employers would be willing to hire these newcomers. Using a factorial survey experiment, we investigate how employers rate applications from Spanish newcomers compared to those from young immigrant descendants of Spanish origin. The results indicate that newcomers are substantially less preferred than immigrant descendants born in Germany. Employers’ expectations about newcomers’ language skills and employers’ interest in training for their own skilled labour force are key barriers to policies promoting apprenticeships abroad.
Sociological research on labor markets has focused most of its attention on the supply side of the labor market, that is, the characteristics of job seekers and job incumbents. Despite its pivotal and we believe primary role in labor market processes, the demand side, in particular the hiring decisions made by employers, has received less attention. The employment relationship, however, comprises both the demand and supply sides, as well as the matching processes that bring these together. We consider the sociology of the demand side by considering three sources of information (human, social, and cultural capital) that employers charged with making hiring decisions seek out, as well as the mechanisms associated with each source. We conceptualize employers as active agents whose hiring behavior is both constrained and enabled by larger social, organizational, and institutional contexts. We call for a program of research that will lead to a fuller empirical and theoretical understanding of employer hiring behavior and its place in the stratifying of labor markets. 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.
The literature on comparative immigration policy is full of studies of policy disasters. Such works show policymakers what to avoid, yet those individuals responsible for formulating and implementing immigration laws often lack examples of what they should be doing instead. That said, although about 64 percent of the labor force and 44 percent of the population of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg is composed of non-citizens, public support for immigration is the highest in the European Union outside of Scandinavia, anti-immigrant violence is rare, and no politically influential anti-immigrant, far-right political party exists.
Luxembourg as an Immigration Success Story: The Grand Duchy in Pan-European Perspective, by Joel S. Fetzer, provides an in-depth examination of Luxembourg's impressive success in this particular arena. Based on personal interviews with Luxembourg's government officials, immigration scholars, ordinary immigrants, and human-rights activists. Fetzer first documents the Grand Duchy's praiseworthy integration of the foreign-born, and then compares Luxembourg's situation with that of other European Union countries in order to test corresponding explanations for this success.
The study concludes that Luxembourg's enviable experience with immigration can be primarily explained by its robust economy, relatively egalitarian income distribution, cultural similarity between native Luxembourgers and the predominately Portuguese and Italian immigrants, low levels of residential segregation, and pro-immigration consensus among the country's leaders.
This paper presents the results of an experimental study that examined the employment opportunities of Austrians with and without a migration background when applying for job openings. Previous experiments used applicants’ names as indicators for different ethnicities, but this signal may not always be perceived as intended by the experimenters. In this study, a novel approach was applied that signals ethnic background using carefully matched photos as distinct visual cues. While the results document employment discrimination against all groups with a migration background, it is most pronounced for applicants with African heritage. To determine why and when discrimination occurs, an array of firm- and job-specific characteristics were examined. However, they offer little help in explaining the level of employment discrimination in Austria.
For almost 50 years field experiments have been used to study ethnic and racial discrimination in hiring decisions, consistently reporting high rates of discrimination against minority applicants – including immigrants – irrespective of time, location, or minority groups tested. While Peter A. Riach and Judith Rich [2002. “Field Experiments of Discrimination in the Market Place.” The Economic Journal 112 (483): F480–F518] and Judith Rich [2014. “What Do Field Experiments of Discrimination in Markets Tell Us? A Meta Analysis of Studies Conducted since 2000.” In Discussion Paper Series. Bonn: IZA] provide systematic reviews of existing field experiments, no study has undertaken a meta-analysis to examine the findings in the studies reported. In this article, we present a meta-analysis of 738 correspondence tests in 43 separate studies conducted in OECD countries between 1990 and 2015. In addition to summarising research findings, we focus on groups of specific tests to ascertain the robustness of findings, emphasising differences across countries, gender, and economic contexts. Moreover we examine patterns of discrimination, by drawing on the fact that the groups considered in correspondence tests and the contexts of testing vary to some extent. We focus on first- and second-generation immigrants, differences between specific minority groups, the implementation of EU directives, and the length of job application packs.
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This chapter presents an integrated understanding of various impression formation processes. The chapter introduces a model of impression formation that integrates social cognition research on stereotyping with traditional research on person perception. According to this model, people form impressions of others through a variety of processes that lie on a continuum reflecting the extent to that the perceiver utilizes a target's particular attributes. The continuum implies that the distinctions among these processes are matters of degree, rather than discrete shifts. The chapter examines the evidence for the five main premises of the model, it is helpful to discuss some related models that raise issues for additional consideration. The chapter discusses the research that supports each of the five basic premises, competing models, and hypotheses for further research. The chapter concludes that one of the model's fundamental purposes is to integrate diverse perspectives on impression formation, as indicated by the opening quotation. It is also designed to generate predictions about basic impression formation processes and to help generate interventions that can reduce the impact of stereotypes on impression formation.
We present experimental evidence from a correspondence test of racial discrimination in the labor market for recent college graduates. We find strong evidence of differential treatment by race: black applicants receive approximately 14% fewer interview requests than their otherwise identical white counterparts. The racial gap in employment opportunities is larger when comparisons are made between job seekers with credentials that proxy for expected productivity and/or match quality. Moreover, the racial discrimination detected is driven by greater discrimination in jobs that require customer interaction. Various tests for the type of discrimination tend to support taste-based discrimination, but we are unable to rule out risk aversion on the part of employers as a possible explanation.
This chapter discusses some of the fundamental concepts in marketing research experimental design in-cluding factorial designs, orthogonal arrays, balanced incomplete block designs, nonorthogonal designs, and choice and conjoint designs. Design terminology is introduced, design efficiency and the relation-ship between designs for linear and choice models are explained, and several examples of constructing designs for marketing research choice experiments are presented. * You should familiarize yourself with the concepts in this chapter before studying the conjoint chapter (page 681) or the discrete choice chapter (page 285). After you are comfortable with the material in this chapter, consider looking at the other design chapters starting on pages 243 and 265.
Although field experiments have documented the contemporary relevance of discrimination in employment, theories developed to explain the dynamics of differential treatment cannot account for differences across organizational and institutional contexts. In this article, I address this shortcoming by presenting the main empirical findings from a multi-method research project, in which a field experiment of ethnic discrimination in the Norwegian labour market was complemented with forty-two in-depth interviews with employers who were observed in the first stage of the study. While the experimental data support earlier findings in documenting that ethnic discrimination indeed takes place, the qualitative material suggests that theorizing in the field experiment literature have been too concerned with individual and intra-psychic explanations. Discriminatory outcomes in employment processes seems to be more dependent on contextual factors such as the number of applications received, whether requirements are specified, and the degree to which recruitment procedures are formalized. I argue that different contexts of employment provide different opportunity structures for discrimination, a finding with important theoretical and methodological implications.
This paper examines the relative well-being of Portuguese immigrants in Luxembourg by looking at non-monetary, or ?direct indicators? of material deprivation. The paper not only documents deprivation di?erentials between immigrants and natives, but also models the association between material deprivation indicators, income and population characteristics in order to shed light on the sources of di?erentials. In particular, we measure how much income di?erentials explain di?erences in material deprivation. We ?nd that answer to this question depend a lot on what deprivation indicators are taken into consideration (and a little on how aggregate material deprivation indicators are constructed). Income di?erences explain material deprivation di?erences entirely when the latter is measured according the European Commission?s headline indicator on material deprivation. Inclusion of housing condition indicators mitigates this relationship and we then ?nd compelling evidence that material deprivation is not entirely accounted for by income di?erentials.
While great progress has been made in documenting that organizational practices affect workplace inequality, little is known about how managers in particular may shape the careers of the employees below them. Using unique longitudinal personnel data on managers and their subordinates, this study identifies and tests for evidence of three distinct mechanisms by which managers potentially influence the assessment of employee performance in the workplace: (1) social network influence between employees’ current and former managers; (2) manager–manager (horizontal) homophily; and (3) manager–employee (vertical) homophily. I find evidence of the independent effects of all three mechanisms of managerial influence on the outcome of disagreement in the performance evaluation ratings of the same worker between former and current managers. In particular, my results stress that both managerial network influence and horizontal homophily affect the process of employee performance assessments, over and above the well-studied vertical homophily mechanism. I conclude by discussing the theoretical implications of these findings for future research regarding the interactional aspects of workplace inequality within contemporary organizations.
Individuals of Arab descent have increasingly experienced prejudice and employment discrimination. This study used the social identity paradigm to investigate whether greater Arab identification of applicants led to hiring discrimination and whether job characteristics and raters' prejudice moderated this effect. One hundred forty-one American and 153 Dutch participants rated résumés on job suitability. Résumés with Arab name and affiliations negatively influenced job suitability ratings, but only when job cognitive demands and external client contact were limited. Within the Dutch sample job suitability rating of Arab applicants was lowest when Dutch raters' implicit prejudice was high. As expected, no effects of explicit prejudice were found: discrimination may operate in subtle ways, depending on the combined effect of applicant, job, and rater characteristics. Further research and implications for employment-related decision making, such as anonymous résumé-sifting, are discussed.
Some groups endure longer, are more stable, and are better able than other groups to incorporate new members or ideas without losing their distinctiveness. I present a simple model of individual behavior based on the thesis that interaction leads to shared knowledge and that relative shared knowledge leads to interaction. Using this model I examine the structural and cultural bases of group stability. Groups that are stable in the short run do not necessarily retain their distinctiveness in the long run as new members enter or new ideas are discovered.
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.