Is There Less Discrimination in Occupations Where Recruitment Is Difficult?

Abstract

The authors empirically test the cross-sectional relationship between hiring discrimination and labor market tightness at the level of the occupation. To this end, they conduct a correspondence test in the youth labor market. In line with theoretical expectations, results show that, compared to natives, candidates with a foreign-sounding name are equally often invited to a job interview if they apply for occupations for which vacancies are difficult to fill; but, they have to send out twice as many applications for occupations for which labor market tightness is low. Findings are robust to various sensitivity checks.

Wage subsidies and hiring chances for the disabled: some causal evidence

“…Correspondence experiments to test for hiring discrimination on such grounds as ethnicity, gender, beauty and sexual orientation have been extensively used and refined during the last decade [1,6,12,31,36]. Within these field experiments, pairs of fictitious written job applications are sent to real job openings.…”

“…1 Given the costs associated with their unfavourable outcomes -costs at both the individual and the societal levels -it is not surprising that integrating the disabled into the labour market is a key ambition of many OECD countries [29].…”

“…First, Datta Gupta and Larsen [10] evaluated the Danish Flexjob scheme, which entitles employers to a 1 In addition, hourly wages and training opportunities are also lower among disabled employees [3,9,13,37,38]. 2 Within the classical competitive framework in which wages and employment are formed by a confrontation of labour supply and labour demand, wage subsidies will shift out the labour demand curve for the targeted workers.…”

Ethnic Penalties in Western Labour Markets: <i>Contributions, Explanations, Critiques</i>

“…In a situation of shortage of labour, firms cannot 'afford' to discriminate against applicants with ethnic minority background (Midtbøen 2015a;Baert et al 2015). By contrast, when unemployment is high and firms can pick and choose among a series of qualified candidates, employers are more likely to hire applicants of majority backgrounds.…”

“…Field experiments of employment discrimination have been conducted in countries like Germany (Kaas & Manger 2012), France (Duguet et al 2010), the Netherlands (Andriessen et al 2012), Belgium (Baert et al 2015), Switzerland (Fibbi, Lerch & Wanner 2006), Italy (Allasino et al 2004), Spain (de Prada, Actis & Pereda 1996, Greece (Drydakis 2012), Canada (Oreopoulos 2011), Australia (Booth, Leigh & Varganova 2012), United Stated (Bertrand & Mullainathan 2004;Pager, Western & Bonikowski 2009), Britain (Wood et al 2009), Sweden (Bursell 2014;Carlsson & Rooth 2007), Denmark (Hjarnø & Jensen 2008) and Norway (Midtbøen & Rogstad 2012b;Birkelund et al 2014), demonstrating the prevalence of racial and ethnic discrimination in a wide range of institutional contexts (see reviews in Pager 2007;Riach & Rich 2002;OECD 2013a). Results have varied across countries, but not a single study has concluded that discrimination is not a relevant factor in shaping access to employment for racial and ethnic minority groups.…”