Identifying barriers to Muslim integration in France

Abstract

Is there a Muslim disadvantage in economic integration for secondgeneration immigrants to Europe? Previous research has failed to isolate the effect that religion may have on an immigrant family's labor market opportunities because other factors, such as country of origin or race, confound the result. This paper uses a correspondence test in the French labor market to identify and measure this religious effect. The results confirm that in the French labor market, antiMuslim discrimination exists: a Muslim candidate is 2.5 times less likely to receive a job interview callback than is his or her Christian counterpart. A high-n survey reveals, consistent with expectations from the correspondence test, that second-generation Muslim households in France have lower income compared with matched Christian households. The paper thereby contributes to both substantive debates on the Muslim experience in Europe and methodological debates on how to measure discrimination. Following the National Academy of Sciences' 2001 recommendations on combining a variety of methodologies and applying them to real-world situations, this research identifies, measures, and infers consequences of discrimination based on religious affiliation, controlling for potentially confounding factors, such as race and country of origin.

Zwischen Säkularisierung und religiöser Reorganisation – Eine Analyse der Religiosität türkischer und polnischer Neuzuwanderer in Deutschland

“…So hat man ethnisch-religiöse Benachteiligungen im Bildungssystem und auf dem Arbeitsmarkt nachgewiesen (vgl. exemplarisch Alba 2005;Adida et al 2010;Connor und Koenig 2013), hat die von Muslimen vorgebrachten öffentlichen Anerkennungsforderungen dokumentiert (Statham et al 2005 Varianten der Einbeziehung des Islam in bestehende religionspolitische Arrangements untersucht (Koenig 2007;Laurence 2012). Im Lichte dieser Kontroversen stellt sich indessen die genuin religionssoziologische Frage, wie die Dynamiken der Religiosität von Einwanderern im weitgehend säkulari-sierten Kontext Westeuropas zu beschreiben und zu erklären sind.…”

Who Gets a Swiss Passport? A Natural Experiment in Immigrant Discrimination

“…Another well-recognized problem is that answers to sensitive questions about immigration and racial policies can be biased by social desirability effects, because respondents are unwilling to admit to discriminatory attitudes in times when discrimination has become illegal and socially unacceptable in many countries (Berinsky 1999;Kuklinski, Cobb, and Gilens 1997). 5 In light of these problems, some scholars have turned to field experiments such as audit studies to behaviorally measure racial discrimination in the labor market and other economic domains (Adida, Laitin, and Valfort 2010;Bertrand and Mullainathan 2004;Jowell and Prescott-Clarke 1970;List 2004). We take a complementary approach and study discrimination in naturalization decisions, drawing upon a natural experiment from Switzerland that allows us to overcome some of the inferential challenges mentioned above and illuminates how discrimination against immigrants varies across different types of immigrants and over time.…”

Does religious bias shape access to public services? A large-scale audit experiment among street-level bureaucrats

“…6 candidate is about 2.5 times less likely to receive a job interview callback than a racially similar Christian counterpart (Adida, Laitin, and Valfort 2010).…”

“…Our research suggests that not only do public officials discriminate on the basis of race/ethnicity (Adida, Laitin, and Valfort 2010;Butler and Broockman 2011;Einstein and Glick 2017) -the most commonly used treatment in audit studies of public officials (Costa 2017) -they also do so against minority religious groups such as Muslims and atheists. Even though religion is a legally protected category, these groups still face substantial hurdles as they seek to gain access to basic public services.…”