Do large employers treat racial minorities more fairly? Yes, they discriminate about half as often

Prof. Reitz worked with Rupa Banerjee and Phil Oreopoulos to reanalyze amended data from a large-scale Canadian employment audit study (conduced by Oreopoulos, 2011). The results show substantial organization size differences in discrimination against skilled applicants with Asian (Chinese, Indian, or Pakistani) names in the decision to call for an interview. In organizations with more than 500 employees, Asian-named applicants are 20 percent less likely to receive a callback; in smaller organizations, the disadvantage is nearly 40 percent. Large organizations may discriminate less frequently because of more resources in recruitment and training, more human resources development, and greater experience with diversity. Anonymized résumé review may allow organizations to test hiring procedures for discrimination fairly inexpensively.

See Rupa Banerjee, Jeffrey G. Reitz and Phil Oreopoulos, “Do Large Employers Treat Racial Minorities More Fairly? An Analysis of Canadian Field Experiment Data,” Canadian Public Policy/Analyse de politiques , 44, 1 (March 2018): 1-12. DOI: 10.3138/cpp.2017-033

Featured photo above from Toronto Star, “Asian job seekers face disadvantage even when they have higher degrees, study finds” (Nicholas Keung), January 25, 2017.

See also related articles in Policy Options (Institute for Research on Public Policy):

Jeffrey G. Reitz, Rupa Banerjee, Philip Oreopoulos, “Applying for a job in Canada with an Asian name.” [Recent research into discrimination against racialized job seekers suggests bigger companies are more receptive than smaller ones.] Policy Options, March 30, 2017.

Jeffrey G. Reitz, Rupa Banerjee, Philip Oreopoulos, “Can we avoid bias in hiring practices?” [A recent report from Ottawa’s Name-Blind Recruitment Pilot Project reveals that there are still many challenges in developing hiring practices that avoid bias.] Policy Options, July 6, 2018.

https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2017/02/23/516823230/asian-last-names-lead-to-fewer-job-interviews-still