Discrimination against migrants in Austria An experimental study

Doris Weichselbaumer

No 2015-01, Economics working papers from Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria

Abstract: In this paper, I experimentally examine the employment opportunities of Austrians with and without migration background. Applications of candidates with a Serbian, Turkish, Chinese, Nigerian and no migration background are sent in response to job openings. Previous experiments have indicated ethnicity via the name of an applicant, however employers may not always correctly perceive this signal. Since photographs are a requirement for applications in the German speaking context, this study uses a novel approach to signal ethnic background and employs carefully matched photos as distinct visual cues. While results document employment discrimination for all groups with migration background, it is most pronounced for applicants with an African, i.e. Nigerian, background. To explain why and when discrimination occurs, a battery of firm and job specific characteristics are examined (e.g. whether team or customer contact is part of the job description). However, these help little to explain the actual level of discrimination. Discrimination in Austria therefore seems to be a general phenomenon driven by employers’ preferences that is barely affected by situational variables.

Keywords: migration; discrimination; hiring; correspondence testing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 J15 J71 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 39 pages
Date: 2015-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp and nep-mig
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.econ.jku.at/papers/2015/wp1501.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Discrimination against Migrants in Austria: An Experimental Study (2015)
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:jku:econwp:2015_01

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Economics working papers from Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by René Böheim ().