Can signaling assimilation mitigate hiring discrimination? Evidence from a survey experiment

Abstract

Using a survey experiment, we test whether discrimination against job candidates with a secondgeneration migration background varies by signaling either assimilation into the host society or attachment to the country of origin. In our study, Swiss HR managers evaluate descriptions of fictitious CVs in which we vary the origin, language proficiency, and extracurricular activity of the jobseekers with and without a cultural context. The findings reveal that candidates with Polish-or Turkishsounding names are evaluated worse than candidates with Swiss-or Spanish-sounding names. The effect of signaling attachment to the native and host country culture depends on the perceived distance of the cultural background. A candidate with a Spanish-sounding name who speaks the native language and acts as a chairperson in a Spanish cultural association is granted a better evaluation by employers. Regarding the Polish applicants, neither signaling attachment to the country of origin nor assimilation to the Swiss background makes a significant difference. In contrast, regarding applicants with Turkishsounding names, signaling assimilation improves employers' evaluation of their profile, whereas signaling attachment to the Turkish culture either by an extra curricula activity or indicating proficiency in both the Swiss and Turkish languages leads to significantly worse evaluations. We conclude that especially for individuals stemming from origins that are perceived as culturally distant, signaling attachment to the culture of origin may result in a higher occurrence of discrimination, even when the signal indicates higher human-or social-capital of the jobseeker.

Ethnic and Religious Discrimination in the Wedding Venue Business: Evidence from Two Field Experiments in Germany and Austria

“…In this way, statistical discrimination can be reduced and this can result in greater approval for secular couples with Arabic names. Taste-based discrimination on the grounds of religion can also be reduced because natives might treat a secular wedding among couples with an Arabic name as an indicator of assimilation into a largely secularized society (see also Fossati, Liechti, and Auer 2020), and consequently rank them higher in their ethno-religious hierarchies than Muslim believers due to homophily (preferring other secular people). Hence, they might be less inclined to discriminate against secular weddings for couples with Arabic names.…”

Integrating refugees through active labour market policy: A comparative survey experiment

“…However, we know little about the efficacy of ALMP for refugees’ LMI (for laudable exceptions, see Lundborg and Skedinger, 2016) and even less about employers’ preferences and whether employers consider ALMP participation an asset on a CV. This is surprising because employers’ perceptions affect jobseekers’ LMI chances (Fossati et al, 2020a) and, in turn, the policies’ efficacy (Liechti et al, 2017).…”

Firing discrimination: Selective labor market responses of firms during the COVID-19 economic crisis

“…S2 Table ; S3 Table shows the origin countries of the survey respondents with a migration background) and may also have led to an underrepresentation of workers not proficient in German. Given that language proficiency is an important predictor not only of labor market participation [ 75 , 76 ] but also of discrimination [ 77 , 78 ], any observed discriminatory pattern among the survey respondents is plausibly a lower-bound estimate of the total extent of discrimination in the German labor market. In addition, this definition of migration background is agnostic about citizenship and ethnic or racial traits.…”