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Is it Your Foreign Name or Foreign Qualifications? An Experimental Study of Ethnic Discrimination in Hiring

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Author Info
Carlsson, Magnus () (Baltic Business School)
Abstract

This paper contribute to the existing literature on ethnic discrimination of immigrants in hiring by addressing the central question of what employers act on in a job application. The method involved sending qualitatively identical resumes signalling belonging to different ethnic groups to firms advertising for labour. The results show that whether the applicant has a native sounding or a foreign sounding name explains approximately 77 per cent of the total gap in the probability of being invited to an interview between natives and immigrants, while having foreign qualifications only explains the remaining 23 per cent. This in turn, suggests a lower bound for statistical discrimination of approximately 23 per cent of total discrimination. The analysis indicates further that the 77 per cent are most likely driven by a mixture of preference-based and statistical discrimination.

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File URL: http://www.vxu.se/ehv/filer/forskning/cafo/wps/Nek_wp2_09.pdf
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Publisher Info
Paper provided by Centre for Labour Market Policy Research (CAFO), School of Management and Economics, Växjö University in its series CAFO Working Papers with number 2009:2.

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Length: 36 pages
Date of creation: 14 Jul 2008
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:hhs:vxcafo:2009_002

Contact details of provider:
Postal: Centre for Labour Market Policy Research (CAFO), Dept of Economics and Statistics, School of Management and Economics, Växjö University, SE 351 95 Växjö, Sweden
Phone: +46 470 70 87 64
Web page: http://www.vxu.se/ehv/english/research/research_fields/cafo/
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Related research
Keywords: ethnic discrimination; hiring; job search; preference-based discrimination; statistical discrimination; correspondence testing;

Find related papers by JEL classification:
J64 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, and Vacancies - - - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search
J71 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - Hiring and Firing

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Phelps, Edmund S, 1972. "The Statistical Theory of Racism and Sexism," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 62(4), pages 659-61, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Carlsson, Magnus & Rooth, Dan-Olof, 2007. "Evidence of ethnic discrimination in the Swedish labor market using experimental data," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(4), pages 716-729, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Doris Weichselbaumer, 2004. "Is It Sex or Personality? The Impact of Sex Stereotypes on Discrimination in Applicant Selection," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 30(2), pages 159-186, Spring. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  4. Altonji, Joseph G. & Blank, Rebecca M., 1999. "Race and gender in the labor market," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 48, pages 3143-3259 Elsevier. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
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This page was last updated on 2009-11-30.


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