what's in a name? -- nytimes article
Dec. 14th, 2002 10:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mercifulserpent>What's in a Name? Perhaps Plenty if You're a Job Seeker
>
>December 12, 2002
>By ALAN B. KRUEGER
>
>
>
>
>
>
>WHAT'S in a name? Evidently plenty if you are looking for a
>job.
>
>To test whether employers discriminate against black job
>applicants, Marianne Bertrand of the University of Chicago
>and Sendhil Mullainathan of M.I.T. conducted an unusual
>experiment. They selected 1,300 help-wanted ads from
>newspapers in Boston and Chicago and submitted multiple
>r้sum้s from phantom job seekers. The researchers randomly
>assigned the first names on the r้sum้s, choosing from one
>set that is particularly common among blacks and from
>another that is common among whites.
>
>So Kristen and Tamika, and Brad and Tyrone, applied for
>jobs from the same pool of want ads and had equivalent
>r้sum้s. Nine names were selected to represent each
>category: black women, white women, black men and white
>men. Last names common to the racial group were also
>assigned. Four r้sum้s were typically submitted for each
>job opening, drawn from a reservoir of 160. Nearly 5,000
>applications were submitted from mid-2001 to mid-2002.
>Professors Bertrand and Mullainathan kept track of which
>candidates were invited for job interviews.
>
>No single employer was sent two identical r้sum้s, and the
>names on the r้sum้s were randomly assigned, so applicants
>with black- and white-sounding names applied for the same
>set of jobs with the same set of r้sum้s.
>
>Apart from their names, applicants had the same experience,
>education and skills, so employers had no reason to
>distinguish among them.
>
>The results are disturbing. Applicants with white-sounding
>names were 50 percent more likely to be called for
>interviews than were those with black-sounding names.
>Interviews were requested for 10.1 percent of applicants
>with white-sounding names and only 6.7 percent of those
>with black-sounding names.
>
>Within racial groups, applications with men's or women's
>names were equally likely to result in calls for
>interviews, providing little evidence of discrimination
>based on sex in these entry-level jobs.
>
>There were significant differences in interview-request
>rates among the nine names associated with black women, but
>not among the names within each of the other groups.
>
>At the low end, the interview-request rate was 2.2 percent
>for Aisha, 3.8 percent for Keisha and 5.4 percent for
>Tamika, compared with 9.1 percent for Kenya and Latonya and
>10.5 percent for Ebony.
>
>Only part of this variability reflects chance differences
>resulting from sampling, although the authors have not been
>able to find a good explanation for the wide range. Thus it
>is important that the names chosen for black women were not
>uncommon; they represent 7.1 percent of all names listed on
>Massachusetts birth certificates for black girls from 1974
>to 1979.
>
>The 50 percent advantage in interview requests for
>white-sounding names held in both Boston and Chicago, and
>for both men and women.
>
>This discrepancy complements findings from earlier studies
>in which researchers sent a small number of matched black
>and white "auditors" to apply for jobs in person.
>Typically, though not always, the black job seekers were
>less likely to be invited for an interview or offered a
>job.
>
>Those findings, however, were criticized because the
>applicants knew the intention of the study and might have
>behaved differently. In addition, the auditors might not
>have been well matched with the jobs in question; they
>could have been overqualified or underqualified.
>
>Professors Bertrand and Mullainathan's study is less
>susceptible to these concerns. First, they used a large
>number of names and inanimate r้sum้s. Second, the job
>openings involved administrative, sales, clerical and
>managerial positions, and they submitted r้sum้s patterned
>after real r้sum้s of people who were actually seeking
>similar jobs.
>
>Their most alarming finding is that the likelihood of being
>called for an interview rises sharply with an applicant's
>credentials - like experience and honors - for those with
>white-sounding names, but much less for those with
>black-sounding names. A grave concern is that this
>phenomenon may be damping the incentives for blacks to
>acquire job skills, producing a self-fulfilling prophecy
>that perpetuates prejudice and misallocates resources.
>
>Two main theories explain labor market discrimination. One,
>known as taste-based discrimination, posits that employers
>- or customers, co-workers or supervisors - have a
>preference against hiring minority applicants, even if they
>know they are equally productive.
>
>The other, known as statistical discrimination, assumes
>that employers personally harbor no racial animus but
>cannot perfectly predict workers' productivity. In this
>case, an employer assessing an applicant would assign some
>weight to the average performance of the person's racial
>group, instead of basing the judgment solely on the
>individual's merits.
>
>A difference between these models is that employers
>sacrifice profits to indulge in taste-based discrimination,
>while, in principle, statistical discrimination, if based
>on accurate information, can help the bottom line.
>Professors Bertrand and Mullainathan cannot distinguish
>between the models - and both may be applicable - but they
>suspect that their finding that employers in heavily black
>areas of Chicago are less likely to discriminate against
>black-sounding names augurs for taste-based discrimination.
>
>
>Nevertheless, either rationale for discrimination is
>illegal and prohibited.
>
>"That which we call a rose," Juliet said, "by any other
>name would smell as sweet." An organization like the Civil
>Rights Commission or the Equal Employment Opportunity
>Commission could perform a service if it routinely
>monitored discrimination by conducting audit studies
>similar to Professors Bertrand and Mullainathan's.
>
>http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/12/business/12SCEN.html?ex=1040723701&ei=1&e
>n=c60b456bff50156b
>
>
>
>December 12, 2002
>By ALAN B. KRUEGER
>
>
>
>
>
>
>WHAT'S in a name? Evidently plenty if you are looking for a
>job.
>
>To test whether employers discriminate against black job
>applicants, Marianne Bertrand of the University of Chicago
>and Sendhil Mullainathan of M.I.T. conducted an unusual
>experiment. They selected 1,300 help-wanted ads from
>newspapers in Boston and Chicago and submitted multiple
>r้sum้s from phantom job seekers. The researchers randomly
>assigned the first names on the r้sum้s, choosing from one
>set that is particularly common among blacks and from
>another that is common among whites.
>
>So Kristen and Tamika, and Brad and Tyrone, applied for
>jobs from the same pool of want ads and had equivalent
>r้sum้s. Nine names were selected to represent each
>category: black women, white women, black men and white
>men. Last names common to the racial group were also
>assigned. Four r้sum้s were typically submitted for each
>job opening, drawn from a reservoir of 160. Nearly 5,000
>applications were submitted from mid-2001 to mid-2002.
>Professors Bertrand and Mullainathan kept track of which
>candidates were invited for job interviews.
>
>No single employer was sent two identical r้sum้s, and the
>names on the r้sum้s were randomly assigned, so applicants
>with black- and white-sounding names applied for the same
>set of jobs with the same set of r้sum้s.
>
>Apart from their names, applicants had the same experience,
>education and skills, so employers had no reason to
>distinguish among them.
>
>The results are disturbing. Applicants with white-sounding
>names were 50 percent more likely to be called for
>interviews than were those with black-sounding names.
>Interviews were requested for 10.1 percent of applicants
>with white-sounding names and only 6.7 percent of those
>with black-sounding names.
>
>Within racial groups, applications with men's or women's
>names were equally likely to result in calls for
>interviews, providing little evidence of discrimination
>based on sex in these entry-level jobs.
>
>There were significant differences in interview-request
>rates among the nine names associated with black women, but
>not among the names within each of the other groups.
>
>At the low end, the interview-request rate was 2.2 percent
>for Aisha, 3.8 percent for Keisha and 5.4 percent for
>Tamika, compared with 9.1 percent for Kenya and Latonya and
>10.5 percent for Ebony.
>
>Only part of this variability reflects chance differences
>resulting from sampling, although the authors have not been
>able to find a good explanation for the wide range. Thus it
>is important that the names chosen for black women were not
>uncommon; they represent 7.1 percent of all names listed on
>Massachusetts birth certificates for black girls from 1974
>to 1979.
>
>The 50 percent advantage in interview requests for
>white-sounding names held in both Boston and Chicago, and
>for both men and women.
>
>This discrepancy complements findings from earlier studies
>in which researchers sent a small number of matched black
>and white "auditors" to apply for jobs in person.
>Typically, though not always, the black job seekers were
>less likely to be invited for an interview or offered a
>job.
>
>Those findings, however, were criticized because the
>applicants knew the intention of the study and might have
>behaved differently. In addition, the auditors might not
>have been well matched with the jobs in question; they
>could have been overqualified or underqualified.
>
>Professors Bertrand and Mullainathan's study is less
>susceptible to these concerns. First, they used a large
>number of names and inanimate r้sum้s. Second, the job
>openings involved administrative, sales, clerical and
>managerial positions, and they submitted r้sum้s patterned
>after real r้sum้s of people who were actually seeking
>similar jobs.
>
>Their most alarming finding is that the likelihood of being
>called for an interview rises sharply with an applicant's
>credentials - like experience and honors - for those with
>white-sounding names, but much less for those with
>black-sounding names. A grave concern is that this
>phenomenon may be damping the incentives for blacks to
>acquire job skills, producing a self-fulfilling prophecy
>that perpetuates prejudice and misallocates resources.
>
>Two main theories explain labor market discrimination. One,
>known as taste-based discrimination, posits that employers
>- or customers, co-workers or supervisors - have a
>preference against hiring minority applicants, even if they
>know they are equally productive.
>
>The other, known as statistical discrimination, assumes
>that employers personally harbor no racial animus but
>cannot perfectly predict workers' productivity. In this
>case, an employer assessing an applicant would assign some
>weight to the average performance of the person's racial
>group, instead of basing the judgment solely on the
>individual's merits.
>
>A difference between these models is that employers
>sacrifice profits to indulge in taste-based discrimination,
>while, in principle, statistical discrimination, if based
>on accurate information, can help the bottom line.
>Professors Bertrand and Mullainathan cannot distinguish
>between the models - and both may be applicable - but they
>suspect that their finding that employers in heavily black
>areas of Chicago are less likely to discriminate against
>black-sounding names augurs for taste-based discrimination.
>
>
>Nevertheless, either rationale for discrimination is
>illegal and prohibited.
>
>"That which we call a rose," Juliet said, "by any other
>name would smell as sweet." An organization like the Civil
>Rights Commission or the Equal Employment Opportunity
>Commission could perform a service if it routinely
>monitored discrimination by conducting audit studies
>similar to Professors Bertrand and Mullainathan's.
>
>http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/12/business/12SCEN.html?ex=1040723701&ei=1&e
>n=c60b456bff50156b
>
>
