This paper will exhaustively discuss an array of issues regarding a scholarly article titled: Discrimination in a Low-Wage Labor Market: A Field Experiment. The thesis will aid to identify the notable points and issues the authors try to succinctly make followed by the methods and evidence, which will establish the experimental procedure employed and the inferences or results found. Additionally, the contribution to literature, as well as the implications and recommendations to the prevailing issues, will be discussed in order to identify the importance of the study and how it can be helpful going forward.
Thesis
In the article: Discrimination in a Low-Wage Labor Market: A Field Experiment, the authors, Bart Bonikowski, Bruce Western and Devan Pager discuss elaborately discrimination against people based on their racial affiliations and backgrounds, especially in the low-income job market and in the employment sector altogether. The authors zero in on the favoritism accorded to whites and the discrimination the minority groups of people in the United States are prevalently subjected to, especially during the hiring and recruitment processes of a vast majority of organizations and employment entities across the country. In the study, employment discrimination refers to whether the applicants receive formal invitations for interviews solely based on their resumes, as well as callbacks and job offers after the interviews. The authors specifically look into a variety of issues, which include the impact of race on hiring decisions, the attitude and general perception of minority groups in the job market, compensation imbalances and disparities amongst different racial groups, and the extent of racial preferences in the labor sector among other pertinent issues. This information will thus provide further insight into the levels of discrimination applicants from minority groups in the USA face as well as the degree of discrimination enterprises and organizations have towards minority group applicants.
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Methods
In this field experiment, the authors studied the extent of racial stigma in the low-income job market essentially by comparing and contrasting the likelihood to secure a job or get callbacks amongst the majority (whites) and minority groups in the USA such as the Blacks, Hispanics, and Latins in the labor market. The Hiring Discrimination Study recruited whites, Latino, as well as black applicants who were matched duly on demographic qualities or characteristics, as well as respective interpersonal skills. All the applicants were consequently provided with equivalent resumes and thereby sent to apply commensurate to the entry-level jobs (Pager, Bonikowski, & Western, 2009).
The method incorporated in the study involved sending matched testers to typically apply for 340 entry-level employment opportunities in New York, spanning nine months in 2004. All these respective tester applicants were articulate young men aged between 22 and 26 years, and many of them were college-educated (Pager, Bonikowski, & Western, 2009). By extension, they were correctly matched based primarily on their interactional styles, verbal prowess as well as physical attractiveness. Also, they were consequently assigned fictitious application resumes that indicated similar education thresholds and characteristics of the high school, work experience levels, as well as residence. Their resumes were made in variously different formats and fonts, and were distributed randomly to all the tester applicants from every racial affiliation. They passed a standard training session or program to ensure uniformity in the job interviews. They were identically dressed in the field and communicated via mobile phones to anticipate unusual situations.
Two teams were fielded, each comprising of a white, Latino, and a black tester. In order to ensure comparability, Latin testers were US citizens of Puerto Rico descent who spoke unaccented English. They claimed inability to speak Spanish, just like other testers. The premier team tested basic racial hierarchy, whereby the white applicants served as benchmarks to evaluate the variation specifically in ethnic cum racial stigma. In a bid to calibrate the extent of discrimination based on race, the second tester team contrasted Latino and black applicants with a white having a criminal record. This information was to be disclosed typically in answer form when asked in the interviews. Moreover, the criminal record was reflected on the white testers’ resumes, and it was listed as work experience at a state correctional facility including a parole officer as a reference. For either team, entry-level jobs required minimal previous working experience and at most, a high-school degree. These job titles include retail sales, warehouse workers, restaurant jobs, customer care, clerical workers, among others. This broad range of job listings provided for the extensive coverage of the entry-level low-income job market in New York. In the various methods employed in conducting this research, the issue of imperfect matching amongst the testers is perhaps questionable, considering it is a well-known vulnerability and contingency in audit-related experiments. Nonetheless, realizing perfect matches may produce distortions in recruitment and hiring processes since employers have higher likelihoods to be compelled to consider or privilege comparatively minor factors to break ties.
Evidence of Thesis Support
The primary outcomes of the field experiment concentrate majorly on proportions of applications presented by the test applicants that informed either callbacks or even formal employment offers from the employers, based on applicant’s race. In this regard, the first team evaluated the impacts of racial stigma essentially by comparing the various outcomes of equivalently matched and qualified white, black, and Latino job applicants.
In job applications to 171 employers, the white applicants received job offers or callbacks 31%, as compared to 25.2% and 15.2% positive responses for Latino and black testers, respectively (Pager, Bonikowski, & Western, 2009). Based on these results, therefore, there is an apparent racial hierarchy, whereby whites stand at the very apex, then followed by Latinos, and black applicants trailing behind with a whopping 10% difference. This evidence thus manifests that New York employers are twice as likely to prefer white employees over blacks, even with equivalent experience levels and qualities. This inference stamps and further supports the thesis statement, providing convincing evidence that white applicants have a higher preference in the job market, and thus have higher chances to get job placements as compared to job-seekers drawn from minority groups, case in point Latinos and Blacks. The results further demonstrated how employers generally treat black minorities far less positively. Overall, the results manifest that compared to equivalently proficient blacks, employers have more preference particularly to white and Latino applicants. Based on the evidence and findings, black applicants have to search twice as hard and long as equivalently proficient white job-seekers before receiving callbacks or a formal offer. With respect to criminal backgrounds, the study found that white felons essentially had equal chances to employment as compared to Blacks and Latinos with clean backgrounds. This insinuates that racial stigma supersedes criminal backgrounds, thus providing a vivid and insightful reflection of the impacts of racial differences and color, especially on hiring decisions as depicted in the thesis.
The study’s empirical evidence classifies discriminatory tendencies displayed by employers into three categories: shifting standards, categorical exclusions, and race-based employment channeling. First, categorical exclusion diminished employment opportunity by instant rejection solely depending on race, since the equivalently qualified whites were offered the jobs. Secondly, shifting standards showcased when New York employers hired the white with no experience levels, relative to Latino or black men with identical experience. Race-based work channeling is illustrated by the employer’s channeling of Latino and black men, especially to low or minimum customer contact positions such as dishwashing, busboys, stocking, and others while whites got positions of servers, supervisors, salespeople and other similar ones without qualifications.
Contribution to Literature
Racial progress has for decades, inspired many policymakers and researchers to examine whether discrimination plays any role in economic inequalities in the US. As such, racial discrimination, especially in the hiring and recruitment process, remains a stumbling block to economic equality, as it is still being resonated in many organizations across the country today, (Lopez, September 18, 2017 ). Although racial stigma and preference for certain candidates based on their race is illegal in the US, it is a practice that is still in existent. This is, for example, exemplified by the disturbingly high raw gap between white employees and minorities such as blacks, which goes as high as 30% (Weller & Fields, July 25, 2011 ). Despite legal bans on racial stigma, differences in the employment sector based on racial affiliation is one of the most enduring and biting forms of economic inequality. As a result, economies have since lost billions in revenue. This article thus provides an insightful and detailed overview of essentially how deeply-rooted racial bias and stigma is in the labor market, categorically detailing the various categories of discriminatory behaviors exhibited by employers and their consequent implications, especially in fueling extreme economic inequalities.
Recommendations and Implications
The recommendations and implications of this research will seek to impact the labor market in its entirety, with special emphasis being laid on further research on the subject and more effective methodologies to curb racial differences, especially in the low-wage employment scene, which creates sharp economic inequalities and disparities. There is a need for extensive research, especially for understanding racial stigma in employment as this particular study primarily concentrated on the low-wage labor market amongst youthful men for advertised jobs in New York that constitute a meager 25% of total jobs (Thomas, 2015 ). This study thus proves that more research is instrumental as it only majors in the hiring and recruitment process, which is an integral albeit small part of employment. It leads to further studies on racial preferences, and how employment trajectories are deflected by different forms of racial discrimination and bias. Lastly, the research creates more awareness on the subtle yet systematic ways of the racial stigma still endemic today, and continue to gnaw and shape the employment sector particularly for low-income employees.
References
Lopez, G. (September 18, 2017 ). Study: anti-black hiring discrimination is as prevalent today as it was in 1989. Vox .
Pager, D., Bonikowski, B., & Western, B. (2009). Discrimination in a Low-Wage Labor Market: A Field Experiment. American Sociological Review, 2009, Vol.74 , 784.
Thomas, P. (2015, July 11 ). Social Stratification . Retrieved from kristinmarsh.com: http://www.kristinmarsh.com/stratification/author/pthomas2/
Weller, C., & Fields, J. (July 25, 2011 ). The Black and White Labor Gap in America. Center for American Progress .
