Labor Market Discrimination Research Articles

Social Determinants of Cigarette Smoking among American Women during Pregnancy

Educational attainment is among the most substantial protective factors against cigarette smoking, including during pregnancy. Although Minorities’ Diminished Returns (MDRs) of educational attainment, defined as weaker protective effect of education for racial and ethnic minority groups compared to Non-Hispanic Whites, has been demonstrated in previous studies; such MDRs are not tested for cigarette smoking during pregnancy. To better understand the relevance of MDRs to tobacco use during pregnancy, this study had three aims: firstly, to investigate the association between educational attainment and cigarette smoking in pregnant women; secondly, to compare racial and ethnic groups for the association between educational attainment and cigarette smoking; and thirdly, to explore the mediating effect of poverty status on such MDRs, among American adults during pregnancy. This cross-sectional study explored a nationally representative sample of pregnant American women (n = 338), which was taken from the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH; 2013). Current smoking was the outcome. Educational attainment was the independent variable. Region and age were the covariates. Poverty status was the mediator. Race and ethnicity were the effect modifiers. Overall, a higher level of educational attainment (OR = 0.54, p < 0.05) was associated with lower odds of current smoking among pregnant women. Race (OR = 2.04, p < 0.05) and ethnicity (OR = 2.12, p < 0.05) both showed significant interactions with educational attainment on smoking, suggesting that the protective effect of educational attainment against smoking during pregnancy is smaller for Blacks and Hispanics than Non-Hispanic Whites. Poverty status fully mediated the above interactions. In the United States, highly educated pregnant Black and Hispanic women remain at higher risk of smoking cigarettes, possibly because they are more likely to live in poverty, compared to their White counterparts. The results suggest the role that labor market discrimination has in explaining lower returns of educational attainment in terms of less cigarette smoking by racial and ethnic minority pregnant women.

Field Experiments and Job Posting Sources: The Consequences of Job Database Selection for Estimates of Racial Discrimination

Field experiments have proliferated throughout the social sciences and have become a mainstay for identifying racial discrimination during the hiring process. To date, field experiments of labor market discrimination have generally drawn their sample of job postings from limited sources, often from a single major online job posting website. While providing a large pool of job postings across labor markets, this narrow sampling procedure leaves open questions about the generalizability of the findings from field experiments of racial discrimination in the extant literature. In this paper, we present evidence from a field experiment examining racial discrimination in the hiring process that draws its sample from two sources: (1) a national online job posting website that aligns with previous research, and (2) a job aggregator service that scrapes the web daily in an effort to obtain all online job postings in the United States. While differing in the types of information they collect, we find the job postings drawn from the two sources result in similar estimates of discrimination against Black applicants. In other words, we do not find evidence that racial discrimination varies by the source of the job posting. We conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for studies of racial discrimination, discrimination along other axes of social difference, as well as field-experimental methods more broadly.

CITY-LEVEL HUKOU-BASED LABOR MARKET DISCRIMINATION AND MIGRANT ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN CHINA

A previously undocumented association between city-level degree of hukou-based labor market discrimination and migrant’s individual entrepreneurship engagement is examined. Applying the Oaxaca–Blinder decomposition analysis on the micro data from the China Migrants Dynamic Survey (CMDS) suggests that hukou-based labor market discrimination can on average explain a 6.3% differential in personal income for rural migrants relative to otherwise identical urban migrants. A one standard deviation increase in a city’s average hukou-based labor market discrimination is associated with roughly 2.9 percentage point higher of entrepreneurship rate among rural migrants, holding other things equal. Furthermore, city-level hukou-based labor market discrimination is associated with much higher propensity for engagement in necessitybased entrepreneurship compared with opportunity-based entrepreneurship. Our empirical work also suggests that the association between city-level hukou discrimination and migrant entrepreneurship is more prominent for people with middle level of education, young people, married people, and renters. Policy implications of these findings are discussed.

Jacob Mincer Award

Jacob Mincer Award

Perceptions of success among working-class children of immigrants in three cities

This article examines the subjective understanding of success among members of three groups of children of immigrants from Mexico, North Africa and Turkey, in Dallas, Paris and Berlin respectively, by accounting for their educational and early labor market experiences. We utilize neo-assimilation and segmented assimilation theories and highlight their divergence with regards to downward assimilation and frames of reference. We focus on the working-class children of immigrants in the three settings, as they are at the highest risk of downward mobility. We find that frames of reference play a significant role in shaping the subjective understandings of success among the three groups. Despite their disadvantaged position, Mexican Americans in Dallas regard their experiences as successful given their significant departure from their parents’ low status. French North Africans in Paris, on the other hand, emphasize their limited ability to overcome the restrictions imposed on them by French society and especially schools. Doing so, they compare themselves to their French peers who do not have an immigrant background. Children of immigrants from Turkey in Berlin, by comparison, encounter labor market discrimination but feel successful relative to their parents’ generation. We find that the children of immigrants in our study rely on members of their social networks who impact their labor market experiences as their frame of reference. When they compare themselves to their parents or earlier waves of immigrants, the children of immigrants perceive their accomplishments in a positive light. When they compare themselves to mainstream society, however, they emphasize persisting inequalities. Our conclusions emphasize the importance of understanding subjective experiences of success and mobility that have been largely ignored in the migration literature.

Worlds Apart in India: Analysis of Contractualization of Labor and Evidence from Labor Market Discrimination

This study attempts to decipher the working condition of contract workers with subsequent inferences from wage-based discrimination in formal mining units to understand discriminatory practices and informalization of employment. The methodology uses both theoretical and empirical methods. The empirical analysis follows a descriptive approach with wage decomposition analysis to understand the ongoing phenomenon. The study is primarily based on field data, but we have also solicited secondary data from ASI, NSSO, etc. The field survey tries to find the extent of wage discrimination based on the responses from 300 respondents of state copper mining units located in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. The findings suggest that the socioeconomic conditions do play a massive role in discriminatory behavior in the workplace. The analysis indicates economic discrimination or inequity is high among various social groups (caste) with reference to education, work experience, and skill levels. We found that there is extensive use of contractual labor in public sector units. And informalization of labor causes massive devaluation in working conditions, as wage-based discrimination is found to be stark for contractual workers further aggravating the situation.

Profit, morality and discrimination

ABSTRACT Using an original vignette survey, we study the normative acceptability of the trade-off between immoral profit (discrimination) and costly morality (non-discrimination). We test the causal influence of three factors: i) the origin of discrimination, ii) the steepness of the morality/profit trade-off and iii) anti-discriminatory moral injunctions. Contrasting with past experimental and attitudinal studies, we find that a significant minority of respondents believe that labour market discrimination is acceptable when morality results in profit loss. We also find that the three tested factors have significant effects on normative opinions. Respondents are more likely to choose profit over morality when discrimination is taste-based than when it is caused by imperfect information. Discrimination’s acceptability rises with the cost of non discrimination. Anti-discriminatory moral injunctions sharply reduce the acceptability of profitable discrimination.

Analysis of Regional Wage Difference in Labor Market Discrimination

Based on geographical isolation, dual labor market and other factors, the development of China’s different regional economy has obvious characteristics of differentiation, which can be embodied in the phenomenon of “different salaries for the same work” and “different workers with the same salary”. In order to further analyze its influence, this paper analyzes the regional discrimination in the free labor market with the help of the multiple regression analysis model of regional wage and remuneration in economics, referring to the factors such as region, occupation, expenditure cost and labor market, and on the basis of studying the influence of labor market discrimination, wage difference and human resources on labor remuneration.

How official nationalism fuels labour market discrimination against migrants in the Netherlands and its institutional alternatives

AbstractOfficial nationalism is on the rise, but its impact on relations between people with and without a migration background in institutions is under‐studied. This study, based on 55 interviews in a Dutch ministry in 2016, shows that official Dutch nationalist framings of those relations have been taken over by civil servants. These framings trigger boundary‐making between themselves and discrimination in access to career opportunities, in a climate of insecurity. However, official nationalism absorption, boundary‐making and discrimination are partially neutralized by respondents resorting to institutionally ‘nested’, work‐related and civic identities that enable cooperation, communication and fair allocation of career opportunities. Findings also highlight the exclusive continuities of various forms of imposed official nationalism, including ethno‐nationalism and multiculturalism. They all set people with migration backgrounds apart as culturally different, which foments insecurity among them. Non‐nationalist and institutionally ‘nested’ identities and procedures offer participation and inclusion to our respondents, not ethno‐nationalism nor multiculturalism.

Temporary Refugee and Migration Visas in Australia: An Occupational Health and Safety Hazard.

Employment and work-related exploitation and discrimination are important social determinants of health. However, little is known about the experiences of people on temporary visas in Australia, particularly those on refugee visas. This article reports on a study of people living on temporary visas in South Australia and their experiences of workforce exploitation and discrimination and impacts on health. Interviews were conducted with 30 people: 11 on non-refugee temporary visas and 19 on refugee temporary visas. Data was analyzed thematically. Analysis identified experiences of exploitation and discrimination in the Australian labor market that included difficulties securing work, underpayment, overwork, and hazardous workplaces. These experiences had negative health effects, particularly on mental health. None had made a formal complaint about their treatment, citing the precarity of their visas, difficulties finding an alternative job, and lack of knowledge about what to do. The impacts were especially evident for refugees who were also grappling with pre-settlement trauma and ongoing uncertainties about their future protection. Overall, these findings of discrimination and exploitation in the workplace and subsequent ill health highlight the pervasive impact of neoliberal agendas and stress the need for industrial, immigration, and welfare reform to protect workers on temporary visas.

Lesson Plans for Teaching with Parks and Recreation

Parks and Recreation was a hit NBC showed that aired from 2009 to 2015. The show contains numerous examples of economic concepts and principles that can be used in the classroom. We outline 5 lesson plans on topics from the show that can be used to supplement an instructor's current teaching. Topics include comparative economic systems, market structures, government bailouts, government intervention, and labor market discrimination. All of the scenes are available online at EconomicsOfParksAndRec.com

Employer Learning, Biased Beliefs, and Labor Market Discrimination

Employer Learning, Biased Beliefs, and Labor Market Discrimination

Banking Access and Racial Inequality: Wealth and Human Capital Accumulation of Young Men

There are large racial differences in access to the financial system among young adults. Lack of access to savings and investment opportunities results in low financial returns on savings. Low returns, in turn, reduce ex-ante incentives to save, work, and invest in human capital. Using a structural model of schooling, labor supply, and savings with unequal financial access and endogenous borrowing constraints, I quantify the effects of racial differences in financial access and labor market discrimination on the observed racial wealth gap. Counterfactual policy experiments suggest that a financial inclusion policy that provides full access increases African American youths’ median net worth level and reduces racial wealth inequality. In comparison, a college tuition reduction policy is less effective in reducing wealth inequality.

Community Influence as an Explanatory Factor Why Roma Children Get Little Schooling

Parents who experience poverty and who want to provide their children with an escape route can be expected to encourage and support their progeny’s education. The evidence that Roma parents behave differently is unsettling. In this paper we test empirically an explanation for that behavior. The explanation is based on a theory (Stark et al. 2018) that can be “borrowed” to rationalize the enforcement of norms of little formal education in underprivileged communities. An analysis of survey data collected in Roma communities in four Central and Eastern European countries lends support to the explanation. The analysis reveals a strong negative correlation between the influence of the Roma community on an individual member’s life and the importance accorded by the individual to formal schooling for children. The correlation is robust to controlling for standard determinants of attitudes towards schooling, such as poverty, unemployment, labor market discrimination, and parents’ educational attainment. The analysis suggests that policy interventions aiming to increase the formal education of Roma children need to reckon with the influence of Roma community norms on individual choices.

Community Influence as an Explanatory Factor Why Roma Children Get Little Schooling

Parents who experience poverty and who want to provide their children with an escape route can be expected to encourage and support their progeny’s education. The evidence that Roma parents behave differently is unsettling. In this paper we test empirically an explanation for that behavior. The explanation is based on a theory (Stark et al. 2018) that can be “borrowed” to rationalize the enforcement of norms of little formal education in underprivileged communities. An analysis of survey data collected in Roma communities in four Central and Eastern European countries lends support to the explanation. The analysis reveals a strong negative correlation between the influence of the Roma community on an individual member’s life and the importance accorded by the individual to formal schooling for children. The correlation is robust to controlling for standard determinants of attitudes towards schooling, such as poverty, unemployment, labor market discrimination, and parents’ educational attainment. The analysis suggests that policy interventions aiming to increase the formal education of Roma children need to reckon with the influence of Roma community norms on individual choices.

Women’s organizations as a segment of civil society of modern Russia

The article analyses women’s organizations of modern Russia as a component of civil society. The study is based on the gender approach and materials analyzed include statistical data, results of opinion polls, websites of women’s organizations, interviews and other documents. The women’s movement is considered as one of the social practices in the context of the theory of practices proposed by Pierre Bourdie, Robert Connell and others. The author notes that the peak of women’s activity in Russia was in the 1990s, when women were uniting to solve social problems, such as women’s unemployment, human trafficking, etc. During that time, the women’s movement in Russia was developing with the support of international women’s organizations and foreign charity funds, but after the adoption of the so-called law on “foreign agents” many funds suspended or limited their activities in Russia. As a result, nowadays, many Russian NGOs including women’s organizations are facing financial problems. NGOs recognized as a “foreign agent” experience the most difficulties while organizations with the status of socially oriented NGOs can receive government’s support and funding. Using the method of content analysis, the author revealed that names of Russian women’s organizations often include such words as “family”, “childhood”, and “motherhood”, whereas the words “woman”/“women” and ‘women’s’ are rarely used. This is due to the fact that in Russian society there are still widespread views that the range of women’s interests should be limited to the private sphere. At the same time, the gender theory and feminism are often presented as attempts to undermine national traditions. As a result, a woman is considered as an object of social policy rather than a subject of social processes. The majority of Russian women’s organizations focus on charity work, but specific women’s interests and problems are often ignored or undervalued. However, domestic violence, labour market discrimination, and other gender problems can be solved only through the close interaction of the “third sector”, business, and government.

The superstar effect on colour discrimination in the Brazilian cultural labour market

The superstar effect on colour discrimination in the Brazilian cultural labour market

Reasonable Doubt: Experimental Detection of Job‐Level Employment Discrimination

This paper develops methods for detecting discrimination by individual employers using correspondence experiments that send fictitious resumes to real job openings. We establish identification of higher moments of the distribution of job‐level callback rates as a function of the number of resumes sent to each job and propose shape‐constrained estimators of these moments. Applying our methods to three experimental data sets, we find striking job‐level heterogeneity in the extent to which callback probabilities differ by race or sex. Estimates of higher moments reveal that while most jobs barely discriminate, a few discriminate heavily. These moment estimates are then used to bound the share of jobs that discriminate and the posterior probability that each individual job is engaged in discrimination. In a recent experiment manipulating racially distinctive names, we find that at least 85% of jobs that contact both of two white applications and neither of two black applications are engaged in discrimination. To assess the potential value of our methods for regulators, we consider the accuracy of decision rules for investigating suspicious callback behavior in various experimental designs under a simple two‐type model that rationalizes the experimental data. Though we estimate that only 17% of employers discriminate on the basis of race, we find that an experiment sending 10 applications to each job would enable detection of 7–10% of discriminatory jobs while yielding Type I error rates below 0.2%. A minimax decision rule acknowledging partial identification of the distribution of callback rates yields only slightly fewer investigations than a Bayes decision rule based on the two‐type model. These findings suggest illegal labor market discrimination can be reliably monitored with relatively small modifications to existing correspondence designs.

Community influence as an explanatory factor why Roma children get little schooling

Parents who experience poverty and who want to provide their children with an escape route can be expected to encourage and support their progeny’s education. The evidence that Roma parents behave differently is unsettling. In this paper we test empirically an explanation for that behavior. The explanation is based on a theory (Stark et al. 2018) that can be “borrowed” to rationalize the enforcement of norms of little formal education in underprivileged communities. An analysis of survey data collected in Roma communities in four Central and Eastern European countries lends support to the explanation. The analysis reveals a strong negative correlation between the influence of the Roma community on an individual member’s life and the importance accorded by the individual to formal schooling for children. The correlation is robust to controlling for standard determinants of attitudes towards schooling, such as poverty, unemployment, labor market discrimination, and parents’ educational attainment. The analysis suggests that policy interventions aiming to increase the formal education of Roma children need to reckon with the influence of Roma community norms on individual choices.

Discriminations on the Labor Market in Ukraine

The article found that there is discrimination on the labor market in Ukraine at this stage. Its classification features have been selected and described and the features that most frequently discriminate on the labor sphere in Ukraine are highlighted. The manifestations of labor and gender discrimination in the labor market are analyzed, as well as the categories of persons in Ukraine who directly experience its manifestations. The main problems of discrimination in contemporary Ukrainian society that cause labor and gender discrimination are revealed. Regulatory acts of regulation on the sphere of labor discrimination are investigated, as well as mechanisms of their regulation. The place of Ukraine and neighboring countries in the ranking of the Gender Index is considered. The main tasks, the implementation of which ensures the achievement of the purposes of Sustainable Development, is considered. The study found ways to overcome possible further manifestations of these types of discrimination in the Ukrainian labor market and the conditions for their future achievement