Trends in Hiring Discrimination in Six Western Countries

While Western countries have established a legal framework and are publicly against discrimination, fair and equal treatment— regardless of race or ethnicity—has not been achieved in the workplace. In the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, IPR sociologist Lincoln Quillian and his co-author, John Lee (PhD 2022), investigate trends in racial and ethnic discrimination in hiring in six European and North American countries: Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, the Netherlands, and the United States. The researchers analyze 90 field experimental studies of hiring discrimination against African/Black, Asian, Latin American/Hispanic, and Middle Eastern or North African groups, which include more than 170,000 applications for jobs. Great Britain has the longest history of field experiments, with studies from 1969–2017. Germany has the shortest, with studies ranging from 1994–2017. The researchers find that racial and ethnic discrimination in hiring has not declined significantly in the last 20–40 years in Canada, Germany,

Great Britain, and the U.S., but remained stable. Three exceptions to this were that hiring discrimination against ethnic groups with origins in the Middle East and North African increased after 2000, discrimination in France declined but from an unusually high starting point, and discrimination in the Netherlands increased over time. The results suggest that hiring discrimination in these countries stems from enduring stereotypes, prejudices, and racist ideology, despite hiring practices that aim to increase diversity. The researchers argue for more research into how to reduce persistent racial and ethnic biases in Western labor markets.

Lincoln Quillian is professor of sociology and an IPR fellow.