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Immigrant volunteering: A way out of labour market discrimination?

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  • Baert, Stijn
  • Vujić, Sunčica

Abstract

Many governments encourage migrants to participate in volunteer activities as a stepping stone to labour market integration. In the present study, we investigate whether this prosocial engagement lowers the hiring discrimination against them. To this end, we use unique data from a field experiment in which fictitious job applications are sent in response to real vacancies in Belgium. Ethnic origin and volunteer activities are randomly assigned to these applications. While non-volunteering native candidates receive more than twice as many job interview invitations as non-volunteering migrants, no unequal treatment is found between natives and migrants when they reveal volunteer activities.

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  • Baert, Stijn & Vujić, Sunčica, 2016. "Immigrant volunteering: A way out of labour market discrimination?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 95-98.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:146:y:2016:i:c:p:95-98
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2016.07.035
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    Cited by:

    1. Baert, Stijn & Albanese, Andrea & du Gardein, Sofie & Ovaere, Jolien & Stappers, Jarno, 2017. "Does work experience mitigate discrimination?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 155(C), pages 35-38.
    2. Button, Patrick & Walker, Brigham, 2020. "Employment discrimination against Indigenous Peoples in the United States: Evidence from a field experiment," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    3. Giovanis, Eleftherios & Akdede, Sacit Hadi, 2022. "The socio-cultural integration of immigrants in Germany: changes across generations," MPRA Paper 115679, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Ali M. Ahmed & Elisabeth Lång, 2017. "The employability of ex-offenders: a field experiment in the Swedish labor market," IZA Journal of Labor Policy, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 6(1), pages 1-23, December.
    5. Heinz, Matthias & Schumacher, Heiner, 2017. "Signaling cooperation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 199-216.
    6. Eva Van Belle & Ralf Caers & Marijke De Couck & Valentina Di Stasio & Stijn Baert, 2019. "The Signal of Applying for a Job Under a Vacancy Referral Scheme," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(2), pages 251-274, April.
    7. Kertesi, Gábor & Köllő, János & Szabó, Lajos Tamás & Károlyi, Róbert, 2022. "Hogyan lesz az etnikai előítéletből foglalkoztatási diszkrimináció? A kisvállalatok szerepe [How does ethnic prejudice turn into employment discrimination? The role of small companies]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(11), pages 1345-1376.
    8. Asali, Muhammad & Pignatti, Norberto & Skhirtladze, Sophiko, 2018. "Employment discrimination in a former Soviet Union Republic: Evidence from a field experiment," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(4), pages 1294-1309.
    9. Jens Detollenaere & Stijn Baert & Sara Willems, 2018. "Association between cultural distance and migrant self-rated health," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 19(2), pages 257-266, March.
    10. Baert, Stijn, 2017. "Hiring Discrimination: An Overview of (Almost) All Correspondence Experiments Since 2005," GLO Discussion Paper Series 61, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    11. Céline Piton, 2022. "The labour market performance of vulnerable groups: towards a better understanding of the main driving forces," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/352519, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    12. Stijn Baert & Sunčica Vujić, 2018. "Does it pay to care? Volunteering and employment opportunities," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 31(3), pages 819-836, July.
    13. Céline Piton & François Rycx, 2020. "The heterogeneous employment outcomes of first- and second-generation immigrants in Belgium," Working Paper Research 381, National Bank of Belgium.
    14. Van Borm, Hannah & Lippens, Louis & Baert, Stijn, 2022. "An Arab, an Asian, and a Black Guy Walk into a Job Interview: Ethnic Stigma in Hiring after Controlling for Social Class," IZA Discussion Papers 15707, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    15. Lens Dries & Marx Ive & Vujić Sunčica, 2019. "Double Jeopardy: How Refugees Fare in One European Labor Market," IZA Journal of Development and Migration, Sciendo & Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 10(1), pages 1-29, June.
    16. Jens Detollenaere & Sara Willems & Stijn Baert, 2017. "Volunteering, income and health," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(3), pages 1-11, March.
    17. Jeworrek, Sabrina & Leisen, Bernd Josef & Mertins, Vanessa, 2020. "Gift-exchange in society and the social integration of refugees: Evidence from a field, a laboratory, and a survey experiment," IWH Discussion Papers 17/2019, Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH).
    18. Gaddis, S. Michael, 2018. "An Introduction to Audit Studies in the Social Sciences," SocArXiv e5hfc, Center for Open Science.
    19. Bigoni, Maria & Ploner, Matteo & Vu, Thi-Thanh-Tam, 2021. "The Right Person for the Right Job: Workers' Prosociality as a Screening Device," IZA Discussion Papers 14779, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. Alfonso-Costillo, Antonio & Morales-Sánchez, Rafael & López-Pintado, Dunia, 2021. "Does volunteering increase employment opportunities? An experimental approach," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 203(C).
    21. Céline Piton & François Rycx, 2021. "A Broken Social Elevator? Employment Outcomes of First- and Second-Generation Immigrants in Belgium," De Economist, Springer, vol. 169(3), pages 319-365, August.
    22. Alfonso-Costillo, Antonio & Morales-Sánchez, Rafael & López-Pintado, Dunia, 2020. "Does volunteering increase employment opportunities? An experimental approach," MPRA Paper 103976, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    23. Fossati, Flavia & Liechti, Fabienne & Auer, Daniel, 2020. "Can signaling assimilation mitigate hiring discrimination? Evidence from a survey experiment," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    24. Kåre Vernby & Rafaela Dancygier, 2019. "Can immigrants counteract employer discrimination? A factorial field experiment reveals the immutability of ethnic hierarchies," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(7), pages 1-19, July.
    25. Jeworrek, Sabrina & Leisen, Bernd Josef & Mertins, Vanessa, 2021. "Gift-exchange in society and the social integration of refugees–Evidence from a survey, a laboratory, and a field experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 192(C), pages 482-499.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Immigrants; Volunteering; Discrimination; Hiring; Integration;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J71 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - Hiring and Firing
    • D64 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Altruism; Philanthropy; Intergenerational Transfers

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