Interesting race topics . . .

[Jiggyfly]

When did I say that's the only reason people go to college? I wasn't even trying to make a serious point.

This gets really tiresome.

You where using hyperbole to make a point the exact thing you were railing against in another thread.

Why is pointing that out tiresome?

 

[Jiggyfly]

This is something you may be told but it's not longer true:

Hiring bias study: Resumes with black, white, Hispanic names treated the same
Resume names
A new study suggests resumes with names traditionally held by blacks and Hispanics are as likely to get callbacks from potential employers as resumes bearing white-sounding names. (Jim Jurca / iStock)
Alexia Elejalde-RuizContact Reporter
Chicago Tribune

New research on hiring bias found resumes bearing names traditionally held by blacks and Hispanics are just as likely to lead to callbacks and job interviews as those bearing white-sounding names.

The findings, announced last week by the University of Missouri, diverge from the results of a famous study from more than a decade ago that found Lakishas and Jamals were far less likely to get job interviews than Emilys and Gregs.

But study co-author Cory Koedel, an associate professor of economics and public policy at the University of Missouri, cautions that it would "be crazy" to interpret the results to suggest hiring discrimination is a problem of the past.

"People should not overreact to this study, but I think it is a data point to be considered when thinking about discrimination in the labor market today," Koedel said.


The study is the first to apply the resume test to Hispanic applicants, Koedel said, but most of the attention it is getting is fixated on the black-white test.

The new study, which is forthcoming in the journal Applied Economics Letters, has important differences from the research published in 2004 by University of Chicago professor Marianne Bertrand and Sendhil Mullainathan, then at MIT and now at Harvard.

Namely, they used different names.

In the original study, Bertrand and Mullainathan sent nearly 5,000 resumes to 1,300 job ads they found in newspapers in Boston and Chicago from fictional applicants with "very white-sounding names" like Emily Walsh and Greg Baker and "very African-American sounding names" like Lakisha Washington and Jamal Jones. The names were randomly assigned to higher-quality and lower-quality resumes and submitted for administrative support, clerical, customer service and sales openings.

The white names got 50 percent more callbacks than the black names, regardless of the industry or occupation.

One of the criticisms of that study was that Lakisha and Jamal can denote socioeconomic status, and that employers may have made assumptions about education and income rather than race.

Hoping to capture the effect of race alone, Koedel and his co-author, Rajeev Darolia, conducted their experiment using surnames that the U.S. Census shows overwhelmingly belong to whites, blacks and Hispanics, while using first names to signify gender.

In the new experiment, the researchers sent nearly 9,000 resumes to online job postings in seven cities for positions in sales, administrative assistance, customer service, information technology, medical assistance and medical office/billing. The resumes from the fictional black applicants bore the last names Washington and Jefferson, while those from white candidates bore Anderson and Thompson, and those from Hispanic candidates bore Hernandez and Garcia.

On average, 11.4 percent of resumes received a response from an employer, and there were no statistically significant differences across race, ethnic or gender groups.

The study, which only measured the very first step in the hiring process, could suggest that racial discrimination is less prevalent than it was a dozen years ago, the researchers say in a policy paper.

But it also could indicate that last names are a weak signal of race.

Though 90 percent of people with the last name Washington are black and 75 percent of those named Jefferson are black, "there is the fair criticism that maybe no one knows that," Koedel said.

The first names likely didn't help strengthen the connection. Megan and Brian were used for the white candidates, and Chloe and Ryan for the black candidates.

"If I got a resume in the mail for Chloe Washington or Ryan Jefferson it would be hard for me to imagine that I would have interpreted that differently from Megan Anderson or Bryan Thompson," said Northwestern University professor David Figlio, director of the school's Institute for Policy Research, who was not involved in the study.

Doing a search on a database he has of 2 million names of kids born in Florida between 1994 and 2002, Figlio found that 90 percent of Ryans and 89 percent of Chloes are white.

"This new study is interesting and worthwhile but I don't think it changes my view in how important race is in subconscious decision-making," Figlio said. He points to a 2010 study by Stanford University researchers, titled "The Visible Hand," that showed racial bias without the complications of names and other indicators that could influence people's decisions.

That experiment found that an iPod being sold online got 13 percent fewer responses and 17 percent fewer offers if it was shown held by a black hand than by a white hand, "strong evidence that race really makes a difference when people are talking about trustworthiness," Figlio said.

"Am I willing to buy an iPod from somebody — that's exactly the same thing employers are thinking when deciding to hire someone," Figlio said.

To Figlio, the most valuable findings from the Missouri resume study relate to the Hispanic names, which to his knowledge have not been put to such a test before.

The researchers paired the first names Isabella and Carlos with the last names Garcia and Hernandez, all strong indicators of Hispanic origin. So a finding that employers didn't treat those resumes any differently is significant, he said, "and a bit reassuring."

Careem Gladney, who works in supply chain at Cargill Industries and is black, said he doesn't know if he was ever passed up for a job because of his first name. But he believes hiring managers are conscious of it, which isn't always a bad thing. It can help a candidate's prospects if the company values diversity.

"I believe people are conscious of it, and they definitely make a decision," Gladney said.

aelejalderuiz@tribpub.com

Interesting, and I am glad to see the trend changing.

But this is one study and it is a change not the norm.

 

[vince]

Not understanding what you mean?

Speculation that it is being done because he is white?

Yes.

 

[Kbrown]

You where using hyperbole to make a point the exact thing you were railing against in another thread.

Why is pointing that out tiresome?

I spent 5+ years in the liberal arts at two different universities. It's not hyperbole to say that all of those ideas either have courses centered around them or are woven into curricula. Edward Said and post-colonialism were front and center in virtually every British Lit course I took.

Not sure why I am continuing this discussion, because I never used hyperbole of any sort to begin with, but here we are...

 

[Cowboysrock55]

Interesting, and I am glad to see the trend changing.

But this is one study and it a change not the norm.

It's a legitimate study with a significant sample size done the correct way. And it's very recent. Basically it checks all the boxes for me.

 

[townsend]

It's a legitimate study with a significant sample size done the correct way. And it's very recent. Basically it checks all the boxes for me.

I think it's fair to say this is good data, showing a good sign, but certainly not a mission accomplished.

Like it said in the article:

"People should not overreact to this study, but I think it is a data point to be considered when thinking about discrimination in the labor market today,"

 

[Jiggyfly]

And then you have this study done a couple of weeks ago.

Employers' Replies to Racial Names

http://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/w9873.html

"Job applicants with white names needed to send about 10 resumes to get one callback; those with African-American names needed to send around 15 resumes to get one callback."

A job applicant with a name that sounds like it might belong to an African-American - say, Lakisha Washington or Jamal Jones - can find it harder to get a job. Despite laws against discrimination, affirmative action, a degree of employer enlightenment, and the desire by some businesses to enhance profits by hiring those most qualified regardless of race, African-Americans are twice as likely as whites to be unemployed and they earn nearly 25 percent less when they are employed.

Now a "field experiment" by NBER Faculty Research Fellows Marianne Bertrand and Sendhil Mullainathan measures this discrimination in a novel way. In response to help-wanted ads in Chicago and Boston newspapers, they sent resumes with either African-American- or white-sounding names and then measured the number of callbacks each resume received for interviews. Thus, they experimentally manipulated perception of race via the name on the resume. Half of the applicants were assigned African-American names that are "remarkably common" in the black population, the other half white sounding names, such as Emily Walsh or Greg Baker.

To see how the credentials of job applicants affect discrimination, the authors varied the quality of the resumes they used in response to a given ad. Higher quality applicants were given a little more labor market experience on average and fewer holes in their employment history. They were also portrayed as more likely to have an email address, to have completed some certification degree, to possess foreign language skills, or to have been awarded some honors.

In total, the authors responded to more than 1,300 employment ads in the sales, administrative support, clerical, and customer services job categories, sending out nearly 5,000 resumes. The ads covered a large spectrum of job quality, from cashier work at retail establishments and clerical work in a mailroom to office and sales management positions.

The results indicate large racial differences in callback rates to a phone line with a voice mailbox attached and a message recorded by someone of the appropriate race and gender. Job applicants with white names needed to send about 10 resumes to get one callback; those with African-American names needed to send around 15 resumes to get one callback. This would suggest either employer prejudice or employer perception that race signals lower productivity.

The 50 percent gap in callback rates is statistically very significant, Bertrand and Mullainathan note in Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination (NBER Working Paper No. 9873). It indicates that a white name yields as many more callbacks as an additional eight years of experience. Race, the authors add, also affects the reward to having a better resume. Whites with higher quality resumes received 30 percent more callbacks than whites with lower quality resumes. But the positive impact of a better resume for those with Africa-American names was much smaller.

"While one may have expected that improved credentials may alleviate employers' fear that African-American applicants are deficient in some unobservable skills, this is not the case in our data," the authors write. "Discrimination therefore appears to bite twice, making it harder not only for African-Americans to find a job but also to improve their employability."

From a policy standpoint, this aspect of the findings suggests that training programs alone may not be enough to alleviate the barriers raised by discrimination, the authors write. "If African-Americans recognize how employers reward their skills, they may be rationally more reluctant than whites to even participate in these programs."

The experiment, conducted between July 2001 and January 2002, reveals several other aspects of discrimination. If the fictitious resume indicates that the applicant lives in a wealthier, or more educated, or more-white neighborhood, the callback rate rises. Interestingly, this effect does not differ by race. Indeed, if ghettos and bad neighborhoods are particularly stigmatizing for African-Americans, one might have expected them to be helped more than whites by having a "good" address.

Further, discrimination levels are statistically uniform across all the occupation and industry categories covered in the experiment. Federal contractors, sometimes regarded as more severely constrained by affirmative action laws, do not discriminate less. Neither do larger employers, or employers who explicitly state that they are "Equal Opportunity Employer" in their ads.

Another finding is that employers located in more African-American neighborhoods in Chicago are slightly less likely to discriminate. There is also little evidence that social background of applicants - suggested by the names used on resumes - drives the extent of discrimination.

The advantage of their study, the authors note, is that it relies on resumes, not actual people applying for jobs, to test discrimination. A race is randomly assigned to each resume. Any differences in response are due solely to the race manipulation and not to other characteristics of a real person. Also, the study has a large sample size, compared to tests of discrimination with real applicants.

One weakness of the study is that it simply measures callbacks for interviews, not whether an applicant gets the job and what the wage for a successful applicant would be. So the results cannot be translated into hiring rates or earnings. Another problem of the study is that newspaper ads represent only one channel for job search.

-- David R. Francis

 

[Jiggyfly]

I spent 5+ years in the liberal arts at two different universities. It's not hyperbole to say that all of those ideas either have courses centered around them or are woven into curricula. Edward Said and post-colonialism were front and center in virtually every British Lit course I took.

Not sure why I am continuing this discussion, because I never used hyperbole of any sort to begin with, but here we are...

What does that have to with the original conversation?

The debate was about tuition and then you threw in something about liberal arts.

Why Liberal Arts as opposed to the myriad of other things a person can be educated in, Towns already talked about tuition only going toward certain fields and that is something I agree with.

Maybe I missed something but to me it seemed an out of left field comment to take a blast at the leftist.

 

[Jiggyfly]

My point exactly. Dude is constantly putting words in people's mouths.

So I guess I should be banned again?

 

[Jiggyfly]

I think lost in all this is the fact that college tuition for minorities is the least of our worries, we need to fix k-12 education first. Schools throughout America are still heavily segregated, and data shows that whenever a kid from the black schools finds a way to go to a white one it changes their whole trajectory.

Here's a thing to listen to on the topic, if you're interested.

https://m.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/562/the-problem-we-all-live-with

Good shit.

 

[Jiggyfly]

Yes.

Ok, but that speculation definitely has merit.

Black people can be racist and petty as shit.

 

[Jiggyfly]

It's a legitimate study with a significant sample size done the correct way. And it's very recent. Basically it checks all the boxes for me.

So what about the more recent study I posted?

 

[Smitty]

I think lost in all this is the fact that college tuition for minorities is the least of our worries, we need to fix k-12 education first. Schools throughout America are still heavily segregated, and data shows that whenever a kid from the black schools finds a way to go to a white one it changes their whole trajectory.

Here's a thing to listen to on the topic, if you're interested.

https://m.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/562/the-problem-we-all-live-with

Amazing things can happen when you get away from bad influences who celebrate academic failure as opposed to ones that celebrate academic success.

 

[skidadl]

So I guess I should be banned again?

Ol Cotton has his hand on the trigger and jiggy basically says,

 

[Kbrown]

Ol Cotton has his hand on the trigger and jiggy basically says,

 

[Cowboysrock55]

So what about the more recent study I posted?

I'm pretty sure the study you posted is talking about the study from a decade ago that is mention in the study I posted. Look at the names on the research...

The new study, which is forthcoming in the journal Applied Economics Letters, has important differences from the research published in 2004 by University of Chicago professor Marianne Bertrand and Sendhil Mullainathan, then at MIT and now at Harvard.

That line is from the article I posted. The article you posted specifically refers to the study by Bertrand and Mullainathan. Hell even in your article it mentions the research being done in 2001... I feel like I should make a google joke but I'll leave this alone for now.

 

[Jiggyfly]

I'm pretty sure the study you posted is talking about the study from a decade ago that is mention in the study I posted. Look at the names on the research...

The new study, which is forthcoming in the journal Applied Economics Letters, has important differences from the research published in 2004 by University of Chicago professor Marianne Bertrand and Sendhil Mullainathan, then at MIT and now at Harvard.

That line is from the article I posted. The article you posted specifically refers to the study by Bertrand and Mullainathan. Hell even in your article it mentions the research being done in 2001... I feel like I should make a google joke but I'll leave this alone for now.

My bad I just looked at the date on top and skimmed.

Will look and see if there is anything more up to date.

 

[skidadl]

Hello...hello...?

It's quiet in here...

 

[jsmith6919]

Hello...hello...?

It's quiet in here...

 

[Cotton]

Hello...hello...?

It's quiet in here...