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by
Guy Summers
The
recently released study:
Are Emily and Brendan More Employable
than Lakisha and Jamal? (A Field Experiment on
Labor Market Discrimination) provides some
disturbing evidence that discrimination in
American businesses continues to flourish and that
this behavior will be with us for quite some time.
This
landmark study clearly identifies discrimination
as an important factor that African Americans face
when seeking employment in Corporate America.
Affirmative Action opponents, and other
commentators on race, often claim that we live in
a country where a “level playing field”
exists. This
study provides further indication that the playing
field is not level, and that we have yet to fully
eradicate many of the injustices that people of
color face on a daily basis.
In
addition to looking at the study in more depth, Guy
Summers had the opportunity to speak one on
one with one of the study’s co-authors, Dr.
Marianne Bertrand, to learn more about the
origins, methodology, and implications of this
important research.
The
Study
Inequality
in the U.S. labor market is evidenced by a number
of economic measures, including unemployment rates
(where African Americans are more than twice as
likely to be unemployed), and pay (where African
Americans earn nearly 25 percent less than their
white counterparts).
Associate
Professor Dr. Marianne Bertrand, of the University
of
Chicago
Graduate School of Business, and Dr.
Sendhil Mullainathan of the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, conducted this study
to see if they could determine exactly why
significant racial inequality exists.
According
to Bertrand, economists have found it
very hard to measure discrimination, particularly
with the kind of information that typically
exists.
"It was for that reason that we
thought about creating an experiment or some kind
of framework that would yield more convincing
evidence either for or against the notion that
discrimination exists in the workplace.
The name idea came up as an interesting way
to do this,”
said Bertrand.
In
the study, Bertrand and Mullainathan sought
answers to two basic questions:
-
Do
employers actively discriminate against
African Americans in hiring? and
-
If
there is discrimination, does improving
credentials of African Americans have an
effect?
To
answer these questions, the study tracked the
responses received from resumes sent to answer
over 1,300 help wanted ads in
Boston
and
Chicago. Half
of the resumes were randomly assigned
white-sounding names (such as Emily Walsh or
Brendan Baker) and the other half were assigned
African American sounding names (such as Lakisha
Washington or Jamal Jones).
Names were selected from birth certificates
of African American and white birth certificates
of individuals born in
Massachusetts
between 1974 and 1979.
The names that were used in the study were those that
were most common in each racial group.
In
addition, ads were responded to with both higher
quality and lower quality resumes to see how the
effect of race differs by resume quality.
Higher quality resumes included things such
as volunteer experience, military experience,
email addresses, work in school, honors, computer
skills, or other special skills.
Study
Results
Unfortunately,
the study suggests that discrimination continues
to exist and is a factor that impacts African
Americans. The
study found that:
-
Resumes with
white names elicit
about 50% more callbacks than those with African
American names
-
For
whites, higher quality resumes
elicit 30 % more callbacks.
For African Americans, however, higher
quality resumes did not elicit significantly more
callbacks
-
Federal contractors and employers
listed as “Equal Opportunity Employers” in
their ads discriminated as much as other employers
-
Job requirements had little effect
on the extent of discrimination, that is,
discrimination existed at a similar level for
executive jobs, supervisory jobs, and clerical
jobs
-
Whites benefited from living in
"whiter," more educated, or higher income
neighborhoods.
African Americans, however, gained no
benefit from living in these types of
neighborhoods
-
In every industry, except for
transportation and communications, African
Americans fared worse than whites.
Finance, insurance, and real estate had the
biggest gap in callback ratios
-
The highest wage industries
(manufacturing and finance, insurance, and real
estate) were also the highest discrimination
industries
Bertrand was most surprised by two findings in the
study. “I
think that the gap, the results of the callbacks,
was greater than what I expected.
Second, we thought that a better resume
would help to close this gap.
The fact that we didn’t find that to be
the case was very striking.
It told us that something really different
was going on.
Prior to that, we had the feeling that
human resource people were seeing the name and
kind of stopping there without reading the
detail.”
In
the study’s conclusion, the authors commented
further by noting that
“African Americans also find it hard to
fight discrimination improving their observable
skills or credentials.
Our evidence shows that employers reward
African Americans far less for observable skills
and credentials, possibly dulling their incentives
to acquire such skills.”
The
Racial Preference and Suburban Employment
Opportunities Study
Several
other studies have been conducted in recent years
that yield some of the same conclusions as those
found in the U of C/MIT study.
According
to the
May 28, 2003 edition of The Chicago Tribune,
the Legal Assistance
Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago and the Chicago
Urban League also performed a study involving
resumes and testers.
This article stated researchers in this
study found that when employers received resumes
from equally qualified black and white female
applicants for entry-level positions, employers
contacted nearly 33 percent of the White but only
25 percent of
the black applicants.
In cases where black applicants were
slightly more qualified, the White applicants
netted job offers 81% of the time, compared to 70
percent for Blacks. In
addition, the white applicants were offered more
hours (36 for whites compared to 28 for blacks), higher
starting salaries, and the promise of swift
advancement.
Not
surprisingly, the study concluded that race still
plays an important role in who gets jobs.
What
Can Be Done?
Professor
Bertrand and Harold Brull discussed the “Emily
and Brendan…” study on
June 6, 2003, at a Race and Business Forum sponsored by
Chicago United.
Brull is Senior Vice President at
Personnel Decisions International, a training and
development company based in
Minneapolis. Chicago
United is a corporate membership organization that
has a mission of improving race relations and
increasing access to opportunities for people of
color in the Chicago Metropolitan area.
Interestingly, Brull does not advocate taking the names off
of resumes. He
noted that public sector entities have done a
better job of handling issues associated with
resumes and that they have come up with solutions
that could be used readily in the private sector.
Brull also offered several suggestions
for companies looking to avoid problems similar to
those found in the study, including:
-
Better
training of staff members that review resumes
-
More
time for processing resumes and applications
-
Criteria
based review of resumes
-
Use
of multiple people in the resume review
process
-
Movement
away from resumes to more simulations or
testing
-
Close
monitoring of each step of the review process
-
Senior
management “walking the talk” regarding
diversity
-
Holding
human resource people accountable for their
actions
Summary
Companies
clearly need to do more to eliminate
discriminatory behavior of employees involved in
the hiring process.
Senior management must be committed to
leading the diversity efforts and human resource
professionals within companies must continue to
implement systems and methods that will eliminate
the discrimination that already exists.
Why
do companies tolerate discriminatory behaviors?
Bertrand points out that “in
many ways, discrimination is very much about
economics. Pure
prejudice can hurt the company because you are not
hiring good people simply because of their race.
Sometimes discriminatory behavior is
justified by those who believe they will lose clients if too many diverse people are hired.
Measuring the economic impact of either of
these views is difficult.
Further, measuring the economic impact of
how people from the resume pool actually perform
would answer a number of other questions.”
Over
the long term, companies will realize more in the
way of economic benefits when they hire the best
possible staff members, and this can only occur
when applicants are judged by their abilities and
experience, and not by their names.
The
End
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