The impact of criminal records and ethnic-sounding names on young men’s employment chances in Germany: Field experimental evidence[Die Auswirkungen von Vorstrafen und türkischen Namen auf die Beschäftigungschancen junger Männer in Deutschland: Erkenntnisse eines Feldexperiments]

This paper examines whether job applicants with a criminal conviction are disadvantaged in the German labor market and how the effect of having a conviction compares to the effect of having a Turkish-sounding name. To answer this question, I conducted a preregistered correspondence study in Germany (N = 2,134) with a two-by-two between-subjects design. Unsolicited email requests from fictitious job applicants were sent to employers in the cleaning and security sectors. The findings indicate that having a criminal record and having a Turkish name independently reduce the likelihood of receiving a response. The negative impact of a Turkish name was similar to that of having a criminal record: Applicants with Turkish names and no criminal record received about the same number of positive responses as those with German names and a criminal record. Among all groups, Turkish applicants with a criminal record received the fewest responses. As the study examined initial and informal contact between job applicants and employers, the findings shed light on the challenges faced by convicted applicants in two fields of employment that have less formal application processes.