Friday, May 20, 2005

are emily and greg more employable than lakisha and jamal?

Two researchers, Bertrand and Mullainathan carried out a study where they looked at the role of race and racism in the labor market. What they did was to send out resumes to different potential employers (some with "black" names, some with "white" names). The basic result is that the resumes with "black" names got fewer callbacks (yes very shocking). I have a dream that one day Keisha and Darnell will be judged, not by the sounnd of their names, but the qualifications on their resume. (On a side note, several of the "black" names were also "Muslim" names. And it turns out that for women, "Aisha" had the lowest callback rate, and for men "Rasheed" had the lowest callback rate)

If you are interested in more of the nuances and details:
Here is their original paper

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