Skin Colour Salience and Perceived Discrimination: An Experimental Study from India

Nishat Anjum, Sujoy Chakravarty and Divya Vaid

No 1793, GLO Discussion Paper Series from Global Labor Organization (GLO)

Abstract: We explore the effect of making skin colour salient on the perceptions discrimination of a group of college students from Kolkata and Delhi in India. Besides perceptions of skin colour discrimination, we also ask our participants to self-report discrimination they may have felt pertaining to their appearance, caste, income, education and gender. We find that compared to the control group, both lighter and darker skinned participants report significantly higher instances of overall discrimination. For darker-skinned individuals these experiences of discrimination are driven significantly by skin colour and appearance. On the other hand, our lighter skinned sample who are more elite on average, perceive higher overall discrimination arising from being excluded from income and employment opportunities.

Keywords: Discrimination Perception; Stereotype; Colourism; Reverse Discrimination (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C9 D9 O1 Z1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:glodps:1793

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