Ethnic Penalties and Hiring Discrimination: Comparing Results from Observational Studies with Field Experiments in the UK

Zwysen, Wouter; Stasio, Valentina Di; Heath, Anthony

doi:10.1177/0038038520966947

Cited by 33 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…On both utilitarian and cultural grounds, then, we would expect employers to discriminate against European migrants, with a higher level of discrimination against migrants from Eastern Europe. This expectation is also consistent with the limited evidence from field experimental studies that migrants of European background tend to face a fairly modest risk of discrimination in the British labor market ( Heath and Di Stasio, 2019 ; Zwysen, Di Stasio and Heath, 2020 ) and in other Western societies more generally ( Baert et al, 2017 ; Quillian et al, 2019 ; Thijssen et al, 2019 ).…”

Section: Theoretical Frameworksupporting

confidence: 85%

London Calls? Discrimination of European Job Seekers in the Aftermath of the Brexit Referendum

Stasio

Heath

2021

Front. Sociol.

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The central question in this article is whether there was greater discrimination against European applicants in the labor market in those English regions where public opinion was more strongly in favor of Brexit. Using a field experiment conducted immediately after the Brexit Referendum, we provide causal evidence that applicants with EU backgrounds faced discrimination when applying for jobs in England. On average, applicants from EU12 countries and applicants from Eastern European member states were both less likely to receive a callback from employers than were white British applicants. Furthermore, in British regions where support for Brexit was stronger, employers were more likely to discriminate against EU12 applicants. This finding, though, is driven by the more favorable treatment reserved to EU12 applicants applying for jobs in the Greater London area. Eastern Europeans, on the other hand, did not benefit from this ‘London advantage’. Administrative and legal uncertainties over the settlement status of EU nationals cannot explain these findings, as European applicants, both EU12 and Eastern Europeans, faced the same legislative framework in all British regions, including London. Rather, London appears to exhibit a cultural milieu of ‘selective cosmopolitanism’. These findings add to the still limited literature on the relationship between public opinion on immigrants (here proxied by the referendum vote) and the levels of ethnic discrimination recorded in field experiments.

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Section: Theoretical Frameworksupporting

confidence: 85%

London Calls? Discrimination of European Job Seekers in the Aftermath of the Brexit Referendum

Stasio

Heath

2021

Front. Sociol.

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“…Field experiments clearly demonstrate racial discrimination in the labour market. Such discrimination is associated with ethnic penalties, but the latter varies by group, with some groups having more resourceful social networks so that they are able to be relatively successful in spite of discrimination [46]. Investment in educational pays off, but the return for minorities is less than that for their White peers.…”

Section: Challenging the Narrativementioning

confidence: 99%

Perspective Chapter: Black Lives Matter and the Anti-Woke Campaign in the UK

Pilkington¹

2022

Effective Elimination of Structural Racism

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The murder of George Floyd by police officers in the US in 2020 reignited the Black live matter movement and reverberated across the world. In the UK many young people demonstrated their determination to resist structural racism and a number of organizations subsequently acknowledged the need to take action to promote race equality and reflect upon their historical role in colonialism and slavery. At the same time, resistance to these challenges has mounted, with right-wing news media and the UK government drawing upon an anti-woke or anti-PC discourse to disparage attempts to combat structural racism and decolonise the curriculum. This chapter argues that the campaign to discredit anti-racism culminated in 2021 in the production of the Sewell report commissioned by the government. This chapter critically examines this report and the discourse which underpins the report. The discourse is consonant with that of the anti-woke campaign propagated by the right-wing news media and the UK government, and entails the reproductoion of rather than opposition to structural racism.

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“…Field experiments clearly demonstrate racial discrimination in the labour market. Such discrimination is associated with ethnic penalties, but the latter varies by group, with some groups having more resourceful social networks so that they are able to be relatively successful in spite of discrimination (Zwyssen et al, 2021). Investment in education pays off, but the return for minorities is less than that for their White peers.…”

Section: The Optimism Bias In the Sewell Narrativementioning

confidence: 99%

Changing the Narrative on Race and Racism: The Sewell Report and Culture Wars in the UK

Pilkington¹

2021

AASoci

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The murder of George Floyd by police officers in the US in 2020 reignited the Black Lives Matter movement and reverberated across the world. In the UK, many young people demonstrated their determination to resist structural racism and some organisations subsequently acknowledged the need to take action to promote race equality and reflect upon their historical role in colonialism and slavery. At the same time, resistance to these challenges mounted, with right-wing news media and the UK government initiating culture wars to disparage attempts to combat structural racism and decolonise the curriculum. This article argues that the campaign to discredit anti-racism culminated in 2021 in the production of the first major report on race for over 20 years, a report chaired by Tony Sewell and commissioned by the government. Drawing on critical discourse analysis, the author deconstructs this report. Far from making a balanced evidence-based contribution to a national conversation about race, as its proponents claim, it is argued that the report draws upon many right-wing tropes and in the process comprises a further weapon in the culture wars.

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Ethnic Penalties and Hiring Discrimination: Comparing Results from Observational Studies with Field Experiments in the UK

Cited by 33 publications

References 42 publications

London Calls? Discrimination of European Job Seekers in the Aftermath of the Brexit Referendum

London Calls? Discrimination of European Job Seekers in the Aftermath of the Brexit Referendum

Perspective Chapter: Black Lives Matter and the Anti-Woke Campaign in the UK

Changing the Narrative on Race and Racism: The Sewell Report and Culture Wars in the UK

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