This study investigates change over time in the level of hiring discrimination in US labor markets. We perform a meta-analysis of every available field experiment of hiring discrimination against African Americans or Latinos (n = 28). Together, these studies represent 55,842 applications submitted for 26,326 positions. We focus on trends since 1989 (n = 24 studies), when field experiments became more common and improved methodologically. Since 1989, whites receive on average 36% more callbacks than African Americans, and 24% more callbacks than Latinos. We observe no change in the level of hiring discrimination against African Americans over the past 25 years, although we find modest evidence of a decline in discrimination against Latinos. Accounting for applicant education, applicant gender, study method, occupational groups, and local labor market conditions does little to alter this result. Contrary to claims of declining discrimination in American society, our estimates suggest that levels of discrimination remain largely unchanged, at least at the point of hire. discrimination | labor markets | field experiments | race | ethnicity

Comparing levels of discrimination across countries can provide a window into large-scale social and political factors often described as the root of discrimination. Because of difficulties in measurement, however, little is established about variation in hiring discrimination across countries. We address this gap through a formal meta-analysis of 97 field experiments of discrimination incorporating more than 200,000 job applications in nine countries in Europe and North America. We find significant discrimination against nonwhite natives in all countries in our analysis; discrimination against white immigrants is present but low. However, discrimination rates vary strongly by country: In high-discrimination countries, white natives receive nearly twice the callbacks of nonwhites; in low-discrimination countries, white natives receive about 25 percent more. France has the highest discrimination rates, followed by Sweden. We find smaller differences among Great Britain, Canada, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, the United States, and Germany. These findings challenge several conventional macro-level theories of discrimination.

Immigrants are often concentrated in particular, often low-waged, segments of the labour market and employers tend to assume that immigrants posit (soft) skills which make them particularly suited for specific tasks. Less scholarly attention has been given to the real and perceived content of these skills and how employers may shift their view over time. We contribute to the literature by examining changing ethnic employment hierarchies in two immigrant-intensive labour markets in Norway. Drawing on qualitative data from the hotel and fish processing industries, we describe, first, how different ethnic groups are allocated into specific jobs forming a clear hierarchy in the eyes of employers, and, second, how employers' preferences for particular groups change as new immigrants enter the labour market. Theoretically, we develop the concept of 'ethnicity as skill', which points to the tendency among employers to equate ethnic group membership with a set of informal qualifications.

A major question in labour market research is the extent to which discrimination in employments causes the disadvantages experienced by children of immigrants. This article contributes to the debate by utilising a correspondence test study in which pairs of equivalent résumés and cover letters-one with a Pakistani name and one with a Norwegian name-were sent in response to 900 job openings in the greater Oslo area. The results show that applicants with Norwegian names on average are 25 % more likely to receive a call back for a job interview than equally qualified applicants with Pakistani names. More refined analyses demonstrate that the effect of ethnic background on employment probabilities is larger among men than women and larger in the private sector than in the public sector, and important variations among the occupations included in the study are revealed. In an effort to separate the potentially conflating effects of gender and sector, all applications to gender-segregated occupations were removed from the analyses. Interestingly, the gender differences disappear when exclusively analysing discrimination in gender-integrated occupations by sector. In gender-integrated occupations in the private sector, the gender difference in fact is reversed, indicating that women with minority background are treated less favourably than are minority men in the private sector. These results suggest that the intersection of gender, ethnicity, and sector should be scrutinised more carefully in future field experiments.

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Although field experiments have documented the contemporary relevance of discrimination in employment, theories developed to explain the dynamics of differential treatment cannot account for differences across organizational and institutional contexts. In this article, I address this shortcoming by presenting the main empirical findings from a multi-method research project, in which a field experiment of ethnic discrimination in the Norwegian labour market was complemented with forty-two in-depth interviews with employers who were observed in the first stage of the study. While the experimental data support earlier findings in documenting that ethnic discrimination indeed takes place, the qualitative material suggests that theorizing in the field experiment literature have been too concerned with individual and intra-psychic explanations. Discriminatory outcomes in employment processes seems to be more dependent on contextual factors such as the number of applications received, whether requirements are specified, and the degree to which recruitment procedures are formalized. I argue that different contexts of employment provide different opportunity structures for discrimination, a finding with important theoretical and methodological implications.

This article explores how immigrant niches have emerged within two traditional working-class industries in Norway. Drawing on extensive case studies in urban and coastal areas, we analyze how employers perceive the availability and desirability of native-born and immigrant workers and discuss how these perceptions are related to underlying changes in the structure of employment. The article contributes to the literature by developing a general model of the formation of immigrant niches as well as pointing out the context-specific institutional conditions that explain how and why such niches emerge in the first place.

This article reviews studies of discrimination against racial and ethnic minority groups in hiring in cross-national perspective. We focus on field-experimental studies of hiring discrimination: studies that use fictitious applications from members of different racial and ethnic groups to apply for actual jobs. There are more than 140 field experimental studies of hiring discrimination against ethno-racial minority groups in 30 countries. We outline seventeen empirical findings from this body of studies. We also discuss individual and contextual theories of hiring discrimination, the relative strengths and weaknesses of field experiments to assess discrimination, and the history of such field experiments. The comparative scope of this body of research helps to move beyond micromodels of employer decision-making to better understand the roles of history, social context, institutional rules, and racist ideologies in producing discrimination. These studies show that racial and ethnic discrimination is a pervasive international phenomenon that has hardly declined over time, although levels vary significantly over countries. Evidence indicates that institutional rules regarding race and ethnicity in hiring can have an important influence on levels of discrimination. Suggestions for future research on discrimination are discussed. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Sociology, Volume 47 is July 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.