Automatic associations and discrimination in hiring: Real world evidence

Dan-Olof Rooth

Labour Economics, 2010, vol. 17, issue 3, 523-534

Abstract: This is the first study providing empirical support for automatically activated associations inducing discriminatory behavior among recruiters in a real-life hiring situation. Two different field experiments on ethnic discrimination in hiring are combined with a measure of employers' automatic attitudes and performance stereotypes toward Arab-Muslim men relative to Swedish men using the Implicit Association Test. The results show that the probability to invite Arab-Muslim job applicants decreases by five percentage points when the recruiter has a one standard deviation stronger negative implicit association toward Arab-Muslim men. This suggests that automatic processes may exert a significant impact on employers' hiring decisions, offering new insights into labor market discrimination.

Keywords: Implicit; attitudes/stereotypes; Discrimination; Exit; from; unemployment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (96)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:labeco:v:17:y:2010:i:3:p:523-534

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