Audit Discrimination v17

Does Racial and Ethnic Discrimination Vary Across Minority *Groups? Evidence From a Field Experiment Alison Booth Andrew Leigh Elena Varganova Economics Program Economics Program Economics Program Research School of Social Sciences Research School of Social Sciences Research School of Social Sciences Australian National University Australian National University Australian National University alison.booth@anu.edu.au andrew.leigh@anu.edu.au evarganova@yahoo.com http://econrsss.anu.edu.au/Staff/ http://econrsss.anu.edu.au/~aleigh/ abooth/contact_ab.htm Abstract We conduct a large-scale audit discrimination study to measure labor market discrimination across different minority groups in Australia – a country where one quarter of the population was born overseas. To denote ethnicity, we use distinctively Anglo-Saxon, Indigenous, Italian, Chinese, and Middle Eastern names, and our goal is a comparison across multiple ethnic groups rather than focusing on a single minority as in most other studies. In all cases, we applied for entry-level jobs and submitted a CV showing that the candidate had attended high school in Australia. We find economically and statistically significant differences in callback rates, suggesting that ethnic minority candidates would need to apply for more jobs in order to receive the same number of interviews. These differences vary systematically across groups, with Italians (a more established migrant group) suffering less ...