Employers uphold segregated labor market

Job applications with foreign-sounding names are rejected at a higher rate by employers in occupations where the share of employees with foreign backgrounds is low. This is shown in a study conducted at IFFS.

Magnus Bygren and Moa Bursell, researchers in sociology at IFFS, sent out more than 7,000 job applications across 15 different occupations. Although the applications were otherwise equivalent in terms of qualifications, employers in sectors where few people with foreign backgrounds work rejected a larger share of applications with foreign-sounding names.

Discrimination decreases as the proportion of employees with foreign backgrounds in a sector increases. When that proportion approached 50 percent, the researchers found no discrimination against applications with foreign-sounding names.

The researchers argue that this contributes to a segregated labour market and reinforces perceptions about which jobs are considered suitable for members of the majority population and which are considered suitable for people with foreign backgrounds.

One interesting finding from the study is that discrimination against applications with foreign-sounding names appeared to affect only male applicants.

“Men are more often perceived as representatives of out-groups in different contexts. If out-groups are viewed as threatening, uncivilised or morally inferior to the in-group, these perceptions are stronger for men than for women,” Magnus Bygren says in a press release from Stockholm University.

Read the full study: https://direct.mit.edu/euso/article/28/3/462/130764/The-making-of-ethnic-segregation-on-the-labor