Racial Discrimination in Hiring Remains Entrenched

A new study led by a researcher at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, found no change in rates of discrimination against African-Americans in field experiments of hiring from 1990 to 2015.

The authors examined 28 different studies representing 55,842 job applications submitted for 26,326 positions. They found that since 1989, Whites receive on average 36 percent more callbacks than African Americans and that this rate remained constant over the period.

“It is often suggested that prejudice and discrimination are fading out over time through a gradual process of liberalization of attitudes,” said Lincoln Quillian, senior author of the study and professor of sociology in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences at Northwestern. “But we found striking stability in discrimination against African-Americans.”

The full study, “Meta-analysis of Field Experiments Shows No Change in Racial Discrimination in Hiring Over Time,” was published on the website of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. It may be accessed here.

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1 COMMENT

  1. I am not attempting to trivilize the black woman’s plight. I know they are suffering as well. But, I believe the hiring discrimination practices effect black masculine heterosexual males more. It is due to the perceived threat of being a black man.

    Moreover, I wish this study went deeper investigating if homosexual black males face the same obsticles. I hypothesize that it is properly not to the same extant.

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