Labor market discrimination in Germany

Ethnische Hierarchien  in  der Bewerberauswahl: Ein  Feldexperiment  zu den  Ursachen  von Arbeitsmarktdiskriminierung (Pdf)

Berlin

Summary and discussion

The results of our studies clearly show that people with a migration background in Germany are discriminated against in the search for a job. However, this discrimination is very different between countries of origin, religious affiliation and phenotype. In particular, Muslims and people with black phenotype are discriminated against. According to the statistical discrimination theory, discrimination should be reduced if employers have more productivity-related information about an applicant, as they can better assess their suitability for the job and not have to rely on group averages. Even though employers in our study react to individual productivity-relevant indicators such as good grades, it can be noted with regard to the descriptive findings that migrants do not directly benefit from better marks, good references or the signal of a permanent employment contract compared to German applicants. Another key finding is that discrimination can be explained better by average differences in values ​​than by differences in education levels, which is an indication of preference-based discrimination. This also explains why applicants with origins in Western and Southern European countries in particular, but also East Asian countries, have such positive feedback rates: the value distance to Germany is particularly low here. For applicants with origins in African and predominantly Muslim countries, which in turn have a very high value distance to Germany, this distance is also reflected in the particularly low response rates. With regard to the economic theories mentioned above, in our study we find more evidence of preference-based discrimination than of statistical discrimination.

Our results show that employers have strong assumptions about the differences in the values ​​and norms of individual migrant groups, and that this is also reflected in their behavior. For example, employers prefer applicants who are most similar to them, ie share similar values ​​to the majority population in Germany. This finding is in line with the findings of Adida, Laitin and Valfort (2016), who have shown in their study that employers cite differences in values ​​as reasons for their discriminatory behavior towards Muslims. The question of whether and to what extent employers invoke differences in values ​​in order to disguise their discriminatory preferences, or whether they fear actual productivity losses due to cultural differences within their workforce and whether there are such productivity disadvantages, can not be answered based on our study design. Future studies should shed more light on these issues with alternative research approaches.

(Google translate)