Can immigrants counteract employer discrimination? A factorial field experiment reveals the immutability of ethnic hierarchies

The Gender Employment Gap among Refugees and the Role of Employer Discrimination: Experimental Evidence from the German, Swedish and Austrian Labor Markets

Compared to their male counterparts, refugee women exhibit low employment rates in many countries. Discrimination by recruiters could possibly explain this phenomenon, but thus far, there is little direct evidence on this. This study addresses this gap. We develop a set of hypotheses about the effects of gender and family status on refugees’ labor market integration, and then test these hypotheses using data from an original survey experiment administered in 2019 to online panels of recruiters in three major refugee-receiving countries (Germany, Austria, and Sweden). We find that recruiters indeed prefer female over male refugees across different job types, all else equal. However, we also find evidence of a disadvantage connected with motherhood among refugees. Overall, our findings raise doubts about the relevance of discrimination as an explanation for the observed employment gap between male and female refugees.

Does the size of foreign population in a city affect the level of labour-market discrimination against job applicants of migrant origin?

Based on a correspondence experiment, this article examines if the size of population of foreign background in a city exerts any significant effect on the extent of labour-market discrimination faced by job applicants of migrant origin. The study results find neither any statistically significant relationship between the two, nor do they lend support to the group threat and group contact conceptual frameworks. Rather, they appear to corroborate the pure discrimination model, as discrimination seems to be uniformly spread over all cities and all types of jobs with different characteristics. However, the findings of this study do not exclude the possibility that there could be a threshold value in the share of foreign population after which the picture of discrimination would become richer in nuances and some of the theories would gain more explanatory power.

Chewing Revenge or Becoming Socially Desirable? Anger Rumination in Refugees and Immigrants Experiencing Racial Hostility: Latin-Americans in Spain

This paper explores how real scenarios of racial hostility and discrimination trigger anger rumination tendencies in refugees, asylum seekers and immigrants (hereafter RASI). Undergoing discrimination often leads to the development of negative thoughts and behaviors, and to a loss of meaning and self-worth. This could make young RASI particularly vulnerable to being recruited and exploited by extremist groups as they search for identity. We developed a picture-elicitation instrument (the PEI) to provide professionals with a tool that could identify groups of RASI according to their reactions to discrimination scenarios and explore how racial hostility might influence withdrawal levels. The tool was applied with the Anger Rumination Scale (ARS_19) to 509 RASI of Latin American origin living in Spain. Four categories were identified, according to how RASI processed anger when observing discrimination scenarios: “Social desirability”, “Chewing”, “Grudge”, and “Vengeful”. Further analyses showed that the youngest (18–29) fell under the “Grudge” and “Vengeful” categories and revealed more despair and social isolation. This study makes a positive contribution by being the first to investigate the problem of anger rumination in RASI undergoing racial hostility. Moreover, it equips professionals with two tools that, once validated, may help plan and implement strategies to reduce the impact of hostility on both RASI and their host societies.

Characterizing Unaccompanied Foreign Minors: Educational Level and Length of Stay as Individual Difference Factors That Impact Academic Self-Efficacy

The aim of the present study is to analyze individual differences in academic self-efficacy within a population of Unaccompanied Foreign Minors (UFM) from the European cities of Ceuta and Melilla (Spain). Variables describing educational level and length of stay were considered in a sample of 377 individuals being cared for in different youth centers. Of these, 63.4% belonged to the group who had stayed at the center for less than 9 months and 36.6% reported a length of stay of more than 9 months. The age of participants ranged between 8 and 17 years old (M = 14.87 years). Once the quality parameters of the instrument (academic self-efficacy) were elaborated, reliability and validity was confirmed through Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) methodology. Data collection was then initiated. The results overall indicate that 87.6% of those who completed the questionnaire reported a higher level of self-efficacy with regards to working with any classmate, whilst at the same time seeing themselves as capable of achieving good marks. ANOVA results indicated significant differences with respect to educational level and length of stay. In this regard, students who had received professional training and had been at the Center for more than 9 months, were the ones who developed greater academic self-efficacy for spending more time working when tasks were judged to be difficult. The results obtained demonstrate that any intervention will be positive as long as it promotes different institutions to develop strategies that cater to a length of stay of more than 9 months and target education, academic self-efficacy, socialization and strengthening the future workforce. Such interventions can be directed through new European, Spanish or local level policies. It is clear that institutions still have a lot of work left to do.

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

The speed of the economic downturn in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic has been exceptional, causing mass layoffs-in Germany up to 30% of the workforce in some industries. Economic rationale suggests that the decision on which workers are fired should depend on productivity-related individual factors. However, from hiring situations we know that discrimination-i.e., decisions driven by characteristics unrelated to productivity-is widespread in Western labor markets. Drawing on representative survey data on forced layoffs and short-time work collected in Germany between April and December 2020, this study highlights that discrimination against immigrants is also present in firing situations. The analysis shows that employees with a migration background are significantly more likely to lose their job than native workers when otherwise healthy firms are unexpectedly forced to let go of part of their workforce, while firms make more efforts to substitute firing with short-time working schemes for their native workers. Adjusting for detailed job-related characteristics shows that the findings are unlikely to be driven by systematic differences in productivity between migrants and natives. Moreover, using industry-specific variation in the extent of the economic downturn, I demonstrate that layoff probabilities hardly differ across the less affected industries, but that the gap between migrants and natives increases with the magnitude of the shock. In the hardest-hit industries, job loss probability among migrants is three times higher than among natives. This confirms the hypothesis that firing discrimination puts additional pressure on the immigrant workforce in times of crisis.

Is there evidence for statistical discrimination against ethnic minorities in hiring? Evidence from a cross-national field experiment

While statistical discrimination theory is often proposed as an important explanation for ethnic discrimination in hiring, research that empirically scrutinizes its underlying assumptions is scant. To test these assumptions, we combine data from a cross-national field experiment with secondary data indicative of the average labor productivity of ethnic communities. We find little evidence that adding diagnostic personal information reduces discrimination against ethnic minorities. Furthermore, we do not find an association between language similarity or the socioeconomic resources of the ethnic community and hiring discrimination. However, our findings show that discrimination is related to the socioeconomic development of the country of ancestry. Finally, the impact of these indicators of group productivity is generally not moderated by the amount of diagnostic personal information. Taken together, these findings question several core assumptions of statistical discrimination theory.