Discrimination in the Spotlight: The Effects of Political and Religious Bias on Consumer Behaviour and Labour Markets

Christos A. Makridis
Additional contact information
Christos A. Makridis: Institute for the Future, University of Nicosia, Engomi 2414, Cyprus2Digital Economy Lab, Stanford University, Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA

Journal of Economics, Management and Religion (JEMAR), 2023, vol. 04, issue 02, 1-29

Abstract: There has been a surge in concern about political polarization and discrimination based on religious and political attitudes in the workplace. Using a nationally-representative sample of nearly 3,000 respondents, this paper presents new empirical evidence on the incidence of social hostilities in the workplace and the causal effects of providing information on consumer and labor market behavior across a range of indicators. Several empirical patterns emerge. First, nearly half of respondents have not shared their personal views about a social or political issue because of fear that sharing it would harm their career. Second, roughly a fifth of respondents have encountered discrimination for respectfully communicating their religious or political viewpoint. Third, these attitudes are negatively correlated with labor market and social media behavior: 40% of respondents say that perceptions of hostility against religious or political views make them much less likely to apply to a company, and 50% of respondents say that they are “very concerned†or “somewhat concerned†about adverse effects related with posting on social media about their religious and political attitudes. Finally, exposure to information about politicized topics is associated with a decline in respondents’ support for companies taking more activist stances. These results suggest that there are adverse and unintended consequences associated with religious and political discrimination, and companies could realize additional benefits by focusing on their core business activities.

Keywords: Consumer behaviour; discrimination; experiment; politics; religion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 D12 D91 J71 J78 Z12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S2737436X24500018
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wsi:jemarx:v:04:y:2023:i:02:n:s2737436x24500018

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from

DOI: 10.1142/S2737436X24500018

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economics, Management and Religion (JEMAR) is currently edited by Robert M. Sauer

More articles in Journal of Economics, Management and Religion (JEMAR) from World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Tai Tone Lim ().