(Press-News.org) Education, professional skills and experience are the essential criteria for filling a position - or at least that is the expectation. The reality often looks different, as numerous studies have shown. When deciding whether to hire a candidate or not, gender, origin or ethnicity sometimes also play an important role; factors that say little about a candidate's suitability for a job.
This type of discrimination violates the principle of equal opportunities. For those affected, this may have long-term disadvantages, such as longer unemployment or lower wages. This is why it is crucial to understand who is discriminated against, and why. The study conducted by Dominik Hangartner (Public Policy Group), Daniel Kopp and Michael Siegenthaler (both KOF Swiss Economic Institute) was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) and has just been published in Nature.
The research team collaborated with the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) to gain access to anonymized data from Job-Room, one of the largest recruitment platforms in Switzerland. Job-Room contains profiles of more than 150,000 job seekers. Recruiters hiring on Job-Room specify the criteria required for a particular job. They then receive a list of suitable candidates and can view their profiles. Among other things, the profiles contain information on expertise, gender, nationality and language skills of candidates. If recruiters are interested in particular candidates, they can contact them with just one click and invite them to a job interview.
Observing millions of decisions
The researchers analysed over ten months which candidates were contacted for an interview, and how recruiters made their selection. Their novel approach - which has significant advantages over conventional methods of studying discrimination - enabled them to determine how the origin or gender of a candidate influenced the likelihood of being contacted.
Previous research has mainly used correspondence studies to shed light on discrimination. In these studies, researchers send HR managers fictitious CVs that are identical except for the characteristic of interest, e.g. the applicant's ethnicity. The researchers then record which applicants are invited to an interview. This is a costly and, because of its interference in actual hiring processes, not unproblematic procedure. Furthermore, correspondence studies are typically limited to few applications and occupations. "By contrast, our method allows us to study discrimination across different professions and points in time, and to analyse the entire search process on the platform. We know which candidates are displayed to recruiters, when and for how long recruiters view a profile, if they click on the contact button - and we observe millions of such decisions," says co-author Daniel Kopp.
Discrimination is larger towards the end of the workday
The research team found that on average immigrant jobseekers were 6.5 percent less likely to be contacted than Swiss jobseekers with otherwise identical characteristics. This discrimination was particularly pronounced for migrants from the Balkans, Africa, the Middle East and Asia, who are often faced with prejudices in everyday life. The researchers were able to show that a foreign origin has a stronger negative impact towards noon and in the evening - when recruiters review CVs faster. So the same recruiter makes different decisions depending on the time of day. "This result suggests that unconscious biases, such as stereotypes about minorities, also contribute to discrimination," says co-author Dominik Hangartner.
These unconscious biases might play a larger role when we are tired or want to leave work.The study also found that both men and women face discrimination. Given equal qualifications, women are mainly discriminated against in typical male professions and men in typical female professions. In the five professions with the lowest proportion of women, women are 7 percent less likely to be contacted. In the five occupations with the highest proportion of women, they are 13 percent more likely to be contacted. According to co-author Michael Siegenthaler, some recruiters still seem to think that women are more suited to certain professions than men, and vice versa. "As a result, occupational segregation persists or is even increased."
Does digitisation lead to more discrimination?
Online platforms such as Job-Room are becoming an increasingly important tool for recruitment. Does that mean discrimination in the job search is growing? The researchers do not expect this to be the case. There is no evidence of more discrimination on online platforms than in traditional recruitment processes. According to Daniel Kopp, discrimination is rather a structural and societal problem that is reflected across the entire labour market. "But in the case of online portals, we can use the existing data to study hiring discrimination in detail and, based on the results, develop strategies to increase equal hiring opportunities."
INFORMATION:
Autophagy is a fundamental cellular process by which cells capture and degrade their own dysfunctional or superfluous components for degradation and recycling. Recent research has revealed that phase separated droplets have a range of important functions in cells. An international collaboration between German, Norwegian, and Japanese researchers has unravelled the mechanisms underpinning both how these droplets are captured through autophagy, as well as how droplets can serve as a platform from which structures facilitating cytosolic autophagy arise.
Two worlds meet
Autophagy[1], a critical intracellular ...
Just like us, many insects need a decent night's sleep to function properly, but this might not be possible if they have been exposed to neonicotinoid insecticides, the most common form of insecticide used worldwide, suggests research by academics at the University of Bristol.
Two studies by scientists at Bristol's Schools of Physiology, Pharmacology and Neuroscience and Biological Sciences have shown these insecticides affect the amount of sleep taken by both bumblebees and fruit flies, which may help us understand why insect pollinators are vanishing from the wild.
Dr Kiah Tasman, Teaching Associate in the School of Physiology, ...
Just over 200,000 Americans suffer from systemic lupus erythematosus, or SLE, a condition in which the body's immune system mistakenly attacks its own healthy tissues, especially joints and skin, a new study shows.
Led by a researcher at NYU Grossman School of the Medicine, the study provides the first national estimate of how widespread the autoimmune disease is since the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) set up a half dozen state registries to track the illness more than a decade ago. SLE affects mostly women, can be fatal, and often involves debilitating flare-ups of fatigue and pain that keep nearly ...
PHILADELPHIA--Patients with inactive cancer and not currently undergoing treatments also face a significantly higher risk of severe illness from COVID-19, a new study from Penn Medicine published online today in JNCI Cancer Spectrum shows. Past reports have established an increased risk of severe disease and death for sick or hospitalized cancer patients with COVID-19 compared to patients without cancer, but less is known about patients in the general population.
The findings underscore the importance of COVID-19 mitigation, like social distancing and mask wearing, and vaccinations for all patients, not just those recently diagnosed or with active disease.
"Patients who have cancer need to be careful ...
New research has shown that people are more likely to follow Covid-19 restrictions based on what their friends do, rather than their own principles.
Research led by the University of Nottingham carried out in partnership with experts in collective behaviour from British, French, German and American universities shows how social influence affects people's adherance to government restrictions. The researchers found that the best predictor of people's compliance to the rules was how much their close circle complied with the rules, which had an even stronger effect than people's own approval of the rules.
The research published in British Journal of Psychology highlights a blindspot in policy responses ...
The US prevalence of the autoimmune disease lupus is 72.8 cases per 100,000 individuals, according to an analysis of population-based registries. The analysis, which is published in END ...
Where people die can affect the quality of their deaths and the end-of-life care that they receive. A study published in the END ...
Pharmacists play an important role in managing medication-based therapies for older community-dwelling patients, according to a study published in the END ...
Prostate cancer is one of the most common cancers among men. Patients are determined to have prostate cancer primarily based on *PSA, a cancer factor in blood. However, as diagnostic accuracy is as low as 30%, a considerable number of patients undergo additional invasive biopsy and thus suffer from resultant side effects, such as bleeding and pains.
*Prostate-Specific Antigen (PSA): a prostate-specific antigen (a cancer factor) used as an index for the screening of prostate cancer.
The Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) announced that the collaborative research team led by Dr. Kwan Hyi Lee from the Biomaterials Research Center and Professor In Gab Jeong from Asan Medical Center developed a technique ...
Pathogenic bacteria in humans are developing resistance to antibiotics much faster than expected. Now, computational research at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, shows that one reason could be significant genetic transfer between bacteria in our ecosystems and to humans. This work has also led to new tools for resistance researchers.
According to the World Health Organisation, antibiotic resistance is one of the greatest threats to global health, food safety and development. It already causes over 33,000 deaths a year in Europe alone.
Completely ...
