Do Some Countries Discriminate More than Others?

Studies document the persistence of ethnic and racial discrimination in labor markets. But how does discrimination differ across contexts and groups? Drawing on findings from 97 field experiments of racial and ethnic discrimination in hiring, including over 200,000 job applications in nine countries in Europe and North America, our study finds significant discrimination against non-white natives in all countries as well as large differences in levels of discrimination across countries.

In recent years, the understanding of discrimination has been enriched by the widespread use of field experiments of hiring. In these experiments, fictionalized candidates apply for actual job openings. The candidates are created to have equivalently strong employment resumes, but to vary in race or ethnicity, which is signaled by the name on the resume or in face-to-face audits by physical appearance. Significant differences between the candidates in callbacks for job interviews are interpreted as evidence of discrimination. Field experiments have the advantage of strong causal validity in assessing discrimination because they use experimental methods in real hiring contexts.

To study how discrimination varies across countries and social groups, our study (Quillian et al. 2019) combined data from all available field experimental studies until 2016. We included data from nine countries for which three or more field experimental studies had been conducted: Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and the U.S. In total, we combined data from 97 field experiments including more than 200,000 applications. We then examined how discrimination rates differed depending on the minority group and the country in the field experiments. We also accounted for other study characteristics, such as the education level of the applicants, the job category, the local unemployment rate, and the year of the study. These characteristics and the specific non-white groups in a country made little difference in assessing variations across countries.

Ubiquitous discrimination against non-white minority groups

We found evidence of significant discrimination against non-whites in all countries (see also Zschirnt and Ruedin 2016). White applicants received 24% to 83% more callbacks than non-white applicants with equivalent resumes. We found no evidence of ‘reverse’ discrimination against white natives in any country. For white immigrants, by contrast, discrimination is much lower and is often not statistically significant. Furthermore, hiring discrimination seems to be driven by race or ethnicity, not immigrant status – we find little difference in discrimination levels between first generation immigrants and later generations.

Striking cross-country variation in discrimination

Our study found striking cross-country variation in discrimination levels. The hiring advantage for white applicants relative to nonwhites is more than three times higher in the country with the most discrimination (France) than in the country with the least discrimination (Germany). Tests of statistical significance using a random-effects meta-analysis model show that only France and Sweden are statistically significantly higher than the U.S.

Source: Quillian, Heath, Pager, Midtbøen, Fleischmann, and Hexel (2019)

Because different studies in the same countries often come to different conclusions, we would require more data to improve our understanding of the variations among other countries. Nevertheless, the evidence from our meta-analysis indicates that countries vary substantially in the extent to which native whites are advantaged relative to nonwhites. We found ‘a country’ to be a better predictor of hiring discrimination than almost any other characteristic in our analysis. Our country differences are also consistent with new field experimental results that have just become available in five countries in Europe (the GEMM studies, see Di Stasio, Lancee, Veit, and Yemenae 2019), confirming that in the domain of hiring, some countries do discriminate more than others.

Why do some countries discriminate more than others?

Evidence points toward some promising potential explanations for why countries differ in levels of hiring discrimination against racial and ethnic minority groups.

The comparatively low level of hiring discrimination in the U.S. could be explained by ethnic monitoring through affirmative action for federal contractors, legal penalties through the EEOC and private lawsuits, and institutional mechanisms that promote diversity at many large corporations. Although U.S. antidiscrimination laws include some ineffective and even counterproductive provisions, evidence suggests at least some parts of antidiscrimination laws and practices reduce discriminatory treatment.

We found low levels of hiring discrimination in Germany, yet it is worth noting that Germany is not found to be low on housing discrimination (Auspurg, Schneck, and Hinz 2019). Our results for Germany may be the result of distinctive hiring practices in which employees typically submit far more extensive background information at initial application than in most other countries. This may reduce the tendency of employers to assume lower skills and qualifications among nonwhite applicants, which is one potential source of discrimination. If such is the case, this suggests the importance of high levels of individual information about applicants as a method to mitigate discrimination.

High discrimination in the French labor market is inconsistent with claims that discourse or measurement of race and ethnicity itself will tend to produce more discrimination by promoting ‘groupism’ and group stereotypes. The efforts in France not to measure or formally discuss race or ethnicity do not seem to have led to less discrimination. In fact, our evidence suggests a lack of measures of race and ethnic inequality may make it more difficult to control bias.

While the reasons for these national differences are not fully understood, what is clear from our results is that national context matters considerably for discrimination. The difference of national patterns we find for hiring from those in the housing sector also suggest that national patterns in discrimination depend on the specific outcome examined. Marshalling better evidence to understand why countries discriminate in hiring at such different levels remains the purview of future research.

Lincoln Quillian is a professor in Sociology at the Northwestern University, Chicago and Arnfinn H. Midtbøen is a research professor at the Institute for Social Research in Oslo.

References:

– Auspurg, K., Schneck, A., and Hinz, T. (2019). Closed Doors Everywhere? A Meta-Analysis of Field Experiments on Ethnic Discrimination in Rental Housing Markets. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 45(1): 95–114.
– Di Stasio, V., Lancee, B., Veit, S., and Yemane, R. (2019). Muslim by Default or Religious Discrimination? Results from a Cross-National Field Experiment on Hiring Discrimination. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 1–22.
– Quillian L., Heath A., Pager D., Midtbøen A.H., Fleischmann F., and Hexel O. (2019). Do Some Countries Discriminate More than Others? Evidence from 97 Field Experiments of Racial Discrimination in Hiring. Sociological Science 6: 467-96.
– Zschirnt, E. and Ruedin, D. (2016). Ethnic Discrimination in Hiring Decisions: A Meta-Analysis of Correspondence Tests 1990–2015. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 42(7): 1115–34.