Language Skills and Homophilous Hiring Discrimination: Evidence from Gender- and Racially-Differentiated Applications

Anthony Edo, Nicolas Jacquemet () and Constantine Yannelis

Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne from Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne

Abstract: This paper investigates the importance of ethnic homophily in the hiring discrimination process, and provides a novel test for statistical discrimination. Our evidence comes from a correspondence test performed in France, in which we use three different kinds of ethnic identification: French sounding names, North African sounding names, and “foreign” sounding names with no clear ethnic association. Within both male and female groups, we show that all non-French applicants are equally discriminated against when compared to French applicants. This indicates that racial discrimination in employment is directed against members of non-majority ethnic groups, and highlights the importance of favoritism for in-group members. Moreover we find direct evidence of homophily: recruiters with European names are more likely to call back French named applicants and female recruiters are more likely to call back women. The paper also directly tests for statistical discrimination by adding a signal related to language skill ability in all resumes sent to half the job offers. Although the signal inclusion significantly impacts the discrimination experienced by non-French females, it is much weaker for male minorities

Keywords: Correspondence testing; Gender discrimination; racial discrimination ethnic homophily; language skills (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J15 J64 J71 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 31 pages
Date: 2013-10
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (33)

Downloads: (external link)
ftp://mse.univ-paris1.fr/pub/mse/CES2013/13058.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Language skills and homophilous hiring discrimination: Evidence from gender and racially differentiated applications (2019)
Working Paper: Language skills and homophilous hiring discrimination: Evidence from gender and racially differentiated applications (2019)
Working Paper: Language skills and homophilous hiring discrimination: Evidence from gender and racially differentiated applications (2019)
Working Paper: Language skills and homophilous hiring discrimination: Evidence from gender and racially differentiated applications (2019)
Working Paper: Language Skills and Homophilous Hiring Discrimination: Evidence from Gender- and Racially-Differentiated Applications (2013)
Working Paper: Language Skills and Homophilous Hiring Discrimination: Evidence from Gender-and Racially-Differentiated Applications (2013)
Working Paper: Language Skills and Homophilous Hiring Discrimination: Evidence from Gender-and Racially-Differentiated Applications (2013)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mse:cesdoc:13058

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