In your face: A comparative field experiment on racial discrimination in Europe Articles uri icon

authors

  • GARCIA DE POLAVIEJA PERERA, FRANCISCO JAVIER
  • Lancee, Bram
  • RAMOS AITKEN, MARIA ISABEL
  • Veit, Susanne
  • Yemane, Ruta

publication date

  • July 2023

start page

  • 1551

end page

  • 1578

issue

  • 3

volume

  • 21

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

  • 1475-1461

Electronic International Standard Serial Number (EISSN)

  • 1475-147X

abstract

  • We present the first large-scale comparative field experiment on appearancebased
    racial discrimination in hiring conducted in Europe. Using a harmonized
    methodology, we sent fictitious re´ sume´ s to real vacancies in Germany, the
    Netherlands and Spain, randomly varying applicants’ ethnic ancestry (signaled
    foremost by name) and applicants’ racial appearance (signaled by photographs).
    Applicants are young-adult country nationals born to parents from over 40 different
    countries of ancestry (N¼12 783). We examine average differences in callback
    across four phenotypic groups and four regions of ancestry and present the first
    cross-country comparable estimates of appearance-based racial discrimination
    reported in the field-experimental literature. We find that applicants’ phenotype
    has a significant and independent effect on employers’ responses in Germany and
    the Netherlands, whereas in Spain we only find evidence of hiring discrimination
    for particular combinations of phenotype and ancestry, which suggests a less direct
    and more complex effect of phenotype in this country. Implications are
    discussed.

keywords

  • discrimination; employer behavior; ethnicity; europe; field experiments; race