Zschirnt, Eva

2019, Zschirnt, Eva, Fibbi, Rosita

The extent to which discrimination in employment disadvantages children of immigrants is a major question both in economic research on labour market and in sociological studies of integration. This working paper contributes to the debate by reporting findings of a correspondence test in which pairs of equally qualified Swiss citizens –one from the majority group and one from one minority immigrant group –apply at job openings all over the country. Results show that children of immigrants holding Swiss qualifications and dual nationality need to send 30% more applications to receive a call-back for an interview when applying for apprenticeship level occupations. Chances of dual citizens to be invited to a job interview are largely the same across linguistic regions. These results partially confirm the findings of a correspondence test conducted in 2003. Unequal treatment is less frequent in occupations requiring tertiary level education compared to occupations requiring acompleted apprenticeship; this is however not the case for Swiss candidates of Kosovar descent. The results suggest the need for further inquiry in occupational differences and ethnic hierarchies in the Swiss labour market.

2016, Zschirnt, Eva

Questions of research ethics always arise when planning a correspondence test to study discrimination in the market place. However, the issue is addressed relatively little in published correspondence tests with authors usually referring to the two seminal articles written in this field (i.e. Banton (1997) and Riach and Rich (2004)). Since then correspondence testing has become more widespread and the technique is increasingly relying on the internet to find and send applications. It is therefore necessary to revisit the question of ethics in correspondence testing. This paper addresses the ethical issues that researchers are facing in correspondence tests that study discrimination in hiring decisions in the labour market in particular. It provides a short overview on the development of research ethic guidelines. The main part of the paper focuses on the ethical issues that arise in correspondence testing, looking at questions of covert research, potential problems (regarding voluntary participation, informed consent, deception, entrapment of employers, employer’s rights), possible solutions and technical challenges. Looking at specific country examples, decisions by ethical commissions and national legal frameworks are considered. These show that testing has to be renegotiated depending on the national context, and, in the case of Germany, legal implications of correspondence testing are discussed. The paper concludes that correspondence testing, if planned carefully and executed responsibly, does not violate research ethics in social sciences.

2016, Zschirnt, Eva

Ethnic and racial discrimination in the hiring process is a common and documented problem. Scientists from different backgrounds and numerous countries have tried to measure the extent of this form of discrimination, mostly by using field experiments such as audit or correspondence tests. This paper will provide an overview of the literature on measuring discrimination in more general terms as well as reviewing the studies already conducted that focus on ethnic or racial discrimination in hiring. It will focus on how discrimination is defined in different disciplines, on the historical political context in which field experiments have emerged once anti-discrimination legislation was adopted in the US and the UK and how the technique was developed further over time. Methodological issues such as the difference between audit (i.e. in-person) and correspondence test (i.e. CV-based) will be addressed as well as the ethical and legal stumbling blocks researchers can encounter when conducting field experiments. It will be shown that today’s field experiments not only cover a wider group of countries, professions or minority groups, but also increasingly add more variables to the testing. Despite this variety in the research designs, this paper concludes that certain trends can be observed in all tests and that discrimination in hiring can be found in all countries where field experiments were conducted.