lecture 12 Flashcards
racial
differences in employment remain among the most
enduring forms of economic inequality
t of f
true
employment discrimination has
generated renewed interest
employment discrimination has
generated renewed interest
contemporary racial disparities
firms are _______ to hire
young minority men—especially blacks—because they
are seen as unreliable, dishonest, or lacking in social or
cognitive skills”
reluctant
“trace the employment problems of
young minority men primarily to skill or other
______ ______rather than any direct effect
of discrimination”
individual deficiencies,
most of the disparity in earnings between
blacks and whites in the labor market of the 1990s is
due to
differences in skills they bring to the market, and
not to discrimination within the labor market
key question of first research
Does employer discrimination continue to affect labor
market outcomes for minority workers?
Clear answers are elusive because
discrimination is
hard to measure. Without observing actual hiring
decisions, it is difficult to assess exactly how and under
what conditions race shapes employer behaviour
We address this issue with a field experiment that
allows _____ ______ of employer decision making.
By presenting equally qualified applicants who differ
only by race or ethnicity, we can observe the degree to
which racial considerations affect real hiring decisions
direct observation
offer a more direct approach to the measurement
of discrimination. This approach, also referred to as an
audit methodology, involves the use of matched teams
of job applicants—called testers—who apply to real job
openings and record responses from employers…
Testers are assigned equivalent résumés and are
matched on a variety of characteristics like
age,
education, physical appearance, and interpersonal
skills.
much of the unexplained variation
that confounds residual estimates of discrimination is
experimentally controlled
In part due to taxing logistical requirements, the use
of in-person audit studies of employment remains
rare
Testers were
assigned fictitious résumés indicating
identical
educational attainment and comparable qualities of
high school, work experience (quantity and kind), and
neighborhood of residence.
two teams that each included a white,
Latino and black testers
what was the difference between the teams
second
team compares black and Latino testers with a white
tester with a criminal record
- first team tests a standard racial hierarchy
From the available population of job listings, we took
a ____ _____sample of advertisements each
week.
simple random
independent variable first study
racialized category
dependent variable
Whether or not a job applicant (tester) received a
positive response from an employer (measured by
keeping track of whether a tester was either offered a
job or called back for a second interview).
Substantial discrimination was found, with a clear racial
hierarchy of employers’ preferences:
White – Latino –
Black.
When applicants are “equal,” Blacks are less likely, at
a statistically-significant level, to have positive
responses to their job applications, than Whites or
Latinos
true
When the white applicant has a criminal record,
there are ___ _____ _____differences in
positive response rates
no statistically significant
relative to equally qualified
blacks, employers significantly prefer
white and Latino
job applicants. The findings suggest that a black
applicant has to search twice as long as an equally
qualified white applicant before receiving a callback or
job offer from an employer
the stigma of a felony conviction appears
to be no greater than
that of minority status
he fact that known information about a white
applicant’s serious criminal conviction is viewed with
no more concern than the assumed characteristics of a
young black man points to the strength and intensity of
contemporary
racial attitudes
the comparison of a white felon with black and Latino
applicants with clean backgrounds provides a
vivid calibration
The episodes of discrimination recorded in this study
were seldom characterized by
overt racism or hostility
This experiment enabled
causal, quantitative
analysis (e.g., discrimination leads to differential
employment outcomes).
causality by
Allow privileged insight into causality, by controlling
for other variables.
experiments cons
Are expensive and time-consuming
- Are not commonly used in Canadian sociology.
Have complex ethical implications.
pro of experiment
Are an externally respected form of scientific method
– approximating the “clinical trials” of medical
researchers or the “laboratory experiments” of
natural scientists.
