Identification, Screening and Stereotyping in Labour Market Discrimination

Maarten Vendrik and Christiane Schwieren

No 4571, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: According to social-psychological research, feelings of uncertainty in decision-making evoke two opposite responses: (i) reduction of uncertainty by information search, leading to less stereotyping of people, and hence less discrimination; (ii) social identification with an ingroup, inducing more reliance on stereotypic perceptions and prejudices, and hence more discrimination against an outgroup. We integrate both responses in a microeconomic model of hiring and pay decisions by an employer. Increasing competition in the product market makes the employer feel more uncertain about his profits, but also raises the opportunity cost of screening expenditures. This elicits substitution of ingroup identification for screening expenditures, and hence enhances discrimination.

Keywords: social identity; stereotyping; discrimination; uncertainty; screening (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J7 M51 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 44 pages
Date: 2009-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mic
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Published - published in Journal of Economics, 2010, 99 (2), 141-171

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp4571.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Identification, screening and stereotyping in labour market discrimination (2010)
Working Paper: Identification, screening and stereotyping in labor market discrimination (2005)
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:iza:izadps:dp4571

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().