Adrian Kunz

Tilburg University

Building on a large body of studies that use correspondence experiments to show discrimination in hiring on a diverse range of grounds, such as ethnicity, race or gender, this paper aims to provide analytical clarity on the different micro-level mechanisms that drive discriminatory hiring outcomes. Moving beyond the distinction between taste-based and statistical discrimination, I propose a theoretical framework that distinguishes five micro-level mechanisms: taste-based, variance-based individual-level, mean-based statistical, mean-variance statistical and prototype-based discrimination. I describe and formalise each mechanism, summarise what we already know about their presence and dominance from existing studies, offer a comparison between them, and identify new avenues for research.  In doing so, the paper serves two key objectives. First, I provide analytical detail on the mechanisms that the current literature generally relies on when theoretically describing discriminatory hiring outcomes. Second, I generate a set of testable hypotheses which can be used in future studies. The results of this theoretical exercise show that the mechanisms of taste-based, variance-based individual-level, mean-based statistical, mean-variance statistical and prototype-based discrimination provide distinct explanations. Yet, while some evidence supports taste-based discrimination, empirical support for other mechanisms remains limited. I identify the need to systematically study the proposed mechanisms in comparison to taste-based discrimination using laboratory experiments, factorial survey experiments, and observational designs. This will help assess their relative explanatory power across different hiring contexts and clarify their role in driving discriminatory hiring outcomes.

Martin Neugebauer¹; Andrea Forster²

¹ Karlsruhe University of Education; ² Utrecht University

The existence of ethnic discrimination in the hiring process has been repeatedly confirmed using field experiments that confront real employers with fictitious applicants. However, the conditions that exacerbate or alleviate hiring discrimination have received surprisingly little attention by researchers. One reason for this paucity of research is that field experiments do usually not contain the necessary information to study mechanisms behind discriminatory behavior as they solely collect dichotomous answers from employers next to a few general firm characteristics. For example, the diversity attitudes of recruiting personnel and the openness of organizations towards diversity remain in the dark. Using a unique combination of different data sources, we, attempt to study these attitudes as a source of ethnic discrimination in hiring. First, using data from a nation-wide field experiment in Germany, we confirm previous research on ethnic discrimination in hiring by showing a hiring gap of 7 percentage points between German and Turkish applicants. Second, we study the relationship between anti-immigrant attitudes of employers and ethnic discrimination. As described above, it is difficult to obtain direct information on employers’ attitudes from field experimental data. Therefore, we use three angles to approximate employer attitudes. First, we look at local election results as a proxy for anti-immigrant attitudes. Second, we determine firms’ commitment to diversity by evaluating texts from job advertisements using automated text analysis. And, third, we apply a survey questionnaire to a subset of our field experiment sample that gives us the opportunity to study recruiter attitudes directly.

Cristóbal Moya¹; Donald Tomaskovic-Devey²; Peter Valet³; Carsten Sauer⁴

¹ DIW Berlin; ² University of Massachusetts Amherst; ³ Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg; ⁴ Bielefeld University

This study examines the legitimacy of inequality-generating mechanisms in organizations—social closure and exploitation—based on gender and race in the US. Drawing on Relational Inequality Theory, we investigate whether the public aligns with existing disadvantages, compensates for them, or disregards them in hiring, negotiation, and promotion contexts.

In Study 1, two survey experiments manipulated gender and race. First, participants acted as organizational decision-makers choosing between two equally qualified candidates for a high-status, masculinized job, and responded to salary negotiation requests. Results revealed a compensatory preference in hiring, favoring women and minority candidates over white men, but no significant differences in salary negotiations. Then, participants evaluated a low-status worker requesting a raise, assessing the fairness of the raise obtained, and whether the worker should negotiate further. Findings indicated support for minority workers to seek further negotiation opportunities, but no differences in wage entitlements. Ideological factors, including progressive views on gender and race, significantly influenced preferences in both experiments.

Study 2 extended this investigation to promotion contexts in a preregistered survey experiment, testing whether compensatory preferences stem from disadvantages causally attributed to organizations. Participants selected between two internal candidates for a managerial promotion and were exposed to different executive team compositions, all-white men or diverse. Results again showed compensatory preferences, while evidencing strong expectations that the executive team would prefer and pay more to white men.

Our findings suggest that while there is public support for compensating opportunity disadvantages, this does not extend to wage negotiations, potentially legitimizing limited inclusion of disadvantaged groups.