Language Skills and Homophilous Hiring Discrimination: Evidence from Gender-and Racially-Differentiated Applications

Anthony Edo (), Nicolas Jacquemet () and Constantine Yannelis
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Anthony Edo: CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement

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Abstract: This paper investigates the importance of ethnic homophily in the hiring discrimination process, and provides a novel test for statistical discrimination. Our evidence comes from a correspondence test performed in France, in which we use three different kinds of ethnic identification: French sounding names, North African sounding names, and "foreign" sounding names with no clear ethnic association. Within both male and female groups, we show that all non-French applicants are equally discriminated against when compared to French applicants. This indicates that racial discrimination in employment is directed against members of non-majority ethnic groups, and highlights the importance of favoritism for in-group members. Moreover we find direct evidence of homophily: recruiters with European names are more likely to call back French named applicants and female recruiters are more likely to call back women. The paper also directly tests for statistical discrimination by adding a signal related to language skill ability in all resumes sent to half the job offers. Although the signal inclusion significantly impacts the discrimination experienced by non-French females, it is much weaker for male minorities.

Keywords: Correspondence testing; gender discrimination; racial discrimination; ethnic homophily; language skills; homophilie ethnique; compétences linguistiques; Evaluation par correspondance; discrimination de genre; discrimination raciale (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013-10
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00877458v1
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (24)

Published in 2013

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Related works:
Journal Article: Language skills and homophilous hiring discrimination: Evidence from gender and racially differentiated applications (2019)
Working Paper: Language skills and homophilous hiring discrimination: Evidence from gender and racially differentiated applications (2019)
Working Paper: Language skills and homophilous hiring discrimination: Evidence from gender and racially differentiated applications (2019)
Working Paper: Language skills and homophilous hiring discrimination: Evidence from gender and racially differentiated applications (2019)
Working Paper: Language Skills and Homophilous Hiring Discrimination: Evidence from Gender- and Racially-Differentiated Applications (2013)
Working Paper: Language Skills and Homophilous Hiring Discrimination: Evidence from Gender-and Racially-Differentiated Applications (2013)
Working Paper: Language Skills and Homophilous Hiring Discrimination: Evidence from Gender- and Racially-Differentiated Applications (2013)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-00877458

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