The Extent of Résumé Whitening

Didier Ruedin and Eva Van Belle
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Didier Ruedin: University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland; University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa

Sociological Research Online, 2023, vol. 28, issue 3, 858-869

Abstract: Persistent hiring discrimination as demonstrated by correspondence experiments incites immigrant job candidates and their descendants to modify their résumé to hide their immigrant status, that is, résumé whitening. To date, we have little to no empirical evidence on how common this is in practice. We test the extent of résumé whitening with a representative survey of immigrants in Switzerland (N = 7659). Around 9% of the immigrants used some résumé whitening. Immigrants appear to use résumé whitening strategically when experiencing or anticipating discrimination. Future correspondence experiments should take this into account to maximize external validity.

Keywords: CV; discrimination; ethnic minority; labor market; migration; résumé whitening (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:socres:v:28:y:2023:i:3:p:858-869

DOI: 10.1177/13607804221094625

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