Sexual orientation discrimination in the Cypriot labour market. Distastes or uncertainty?

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. www.econstor.eu Sexual orientation and employment bias is examined in Cyprus (Republic of Cyprus: Nicosia, Limassol, Larnaca, Paphos) by implementing an experiment for the period 2010-2011. The design is aimed at answering three main questions: Do gay and lesbian people face occupational access constraints and entry wage bias than comparable heterosexuals? Do gay and lesbian people benefit from providing more job-related information? Does the differential treatment between gay/lesbian and heterosexual applicants disappear as the information of the applicants increases? Methodologically, we sent applications to advertised vacancies and we experimented with two information sets the 'sexual orientation' and 'information' of the potential applicants. The estimations suggest that gay and lesbian applicants face significant bias than heterosexual applicants. Moreover, both heterosexual and gay/lesbian applicants gain by providing more job-related information. However, the estimations suggest that the informational premium for sexual orientation minorities could not reduce the discriminatory patterns. The current results indicate that discrimination against sexual orientation minorities in the Cypriot labour market is a matter of preference, not the result of limited information. One strategy the Cypriot government may employ is to try to affect public opinion and people's attitudes towards sexual orientation minorities. This is the first nationwide field experiment in the Cypriot labour market and contributes to the literature as it is the first field study on sexual orientation which tries to disentangle statistical from taste-based discrimination in the labour market. Terms of use: Documents in D I S C U S S I O N P A P E R S E R I E SJEL Classification: C93, J7, J82

Access to the labour market for gays and lesbians: Research review

“…More positive ratings of qualified gay/lesbian candidates (as compared to heterosexuals) may originate from normative pressures toward being even-handed (overcorrection effect). In line with the theory of statistical discrimination, Drydakis (2014) assumes that providing additional favorable information on a job application can reduce employers' discrimination against gay men and lesbians.…”

Sexual orientation and labour market outcomes

“…Discrimination in hiring based on minority sexual orientation has been found to be a matter of employer preference and not a result of uncertainty regarding the commitment of gay and lesbian applicants [7]. That is, a non-heterosexual identity is perceived as a devalued characteristic in hiring compared with a heterosexual identity.…”

“…Although firms may not have biased views about the competence of non-heterosexual job seekers, as a whole they may share the knowledge that a minority sexual Nick DryDakis | Sexual orientation and labor market outcomes orientation is broadly considered to be deviant. This notion can affect a firm's hiring practice because of the fear that customers and other workers might be disturbed by having to interact with people who are gay or lesbian [7]. The hiring discrimination against gay men seems to be higher in male-dominated occupations, whereas hiring discrimination against lesbians is more pronounced in female-dominated occupations [6].…”

Economic pluralism in the study of wage discrimination: a note

“…In practice, this hypothesis cannot be accepted either. Wage discrimination harms hundreds of thousands of people (Drydakis, 2014;2015;2017;Blau and Kahn, 2017).…”