Understanding ethnic hiring discrimination: A contextual analysis of experimental evidence

Abstract

Previous research has demonstrated that context matters in understanding unequal treatment in hiring—for example, some studies have illustrated that hiring discrimination is low in large organisations or high in public-facing occupations. Following a review of the recent literature on ethnic hiring discrimination, we identified fourteen plausible moderators (i.e. discrimination correlates) from which we derived an equal number of hypotheses related to taste-based and statistical discrimination theories. We empirically tested these hypotheses through a moderation analysis of data from a correspondence experiment supplemented with occupation, organisation, and sector characteristics. Our empirical approach allowed us to simultaneously evaluate and control the interaction effects of multiple contextual factors with ethnic hiring discrimination. Overall, we find that minority (non-Flemish) candidates receive significantly fewer positive responses to their job applications than majority (Flemish) candidates. In particular, non-Flemish candidates experience significantly less discrimination when applying to not-for-profit organisations or organisations with a large workforce. We also find partial empirical support for the hypotheses that hiring discrimination is high in occupations requiring much interaction between colleagues and in occupations where labour market tightness is low. Future research avenues include evaluating the rationale behind the discrimination correlates mentioned above and testing the replicability of this study's findings across different institutional contexts, labour markets, and grounds for discrimination.