In your face: a comparative field experiment on racial discrimination in Europe

Abstract

We present the first large-scale comparative field experiment on appearancebased racial discrimination in hiring conducted in Europe. Using a harmonized methodology, we sent fictitious re´ sume´ s to real vacancies in Germany, the Netherlands and Spain, randomly varying applicants’ ethnic ancestry (signaled foremost by name) and applicants’ racial appearance (signaled by photographs). Applicants are young-adult country nationals born to parents from over 40 different countries of ancestry (N¼12 783). We examine average differences in callback across four phenotypic groups and four regions of ancestry and present the first cross-country comparable estimates of appearance-based racial discrimination reported in the field-experimental literature. We find that applicants’ phenotype has a significant and independent effect on employers’ responses in Germany and the Netherlands, whereas in Spain we only find evidence of hiring discrimination for particular combinations of phenotype and ancestry, which suggests a less direct and more complex effect of phenotype in this country. Implications are discussed.