Women No Longer Face Discrimination for Jobs—If They're White

It's not gender that matters to employers but whether job applicants have white or Black names, says a new study.

To all who fear that white people are not getting a fair shake in the job marketplace, I bring reassuring news: You are still the favorites. Despite rumors that minorities have the advantage, being white still rocks, particularly when the competition is Black.

That’s the upshot of recent research by economists at the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Chicago who analyzed how the names of job applicants affected their chances of getting hired. Based on responses to 80,000 résumés sent to over 100 Fortune 500 companies, the study finds that, on average, applicants with white-sounding names got call backs 9.5% more often than those with Black-sounding names. (The research, which focused on entry-level jobs, did not include Hispanic- or Asian-sounding names; as New York Times reports, “other research suggests that they are also contacted less than white applicants, though they face less discrimination than Black applicants.”)

That white job seekers enjoy almost a 10% advantage over their Black counterparts at the starting gate should raise alarms. But is this at all surprising?

The study finds that the level of discrimination that Black applicants experienced was very industry specific, with auto dealers and car parts retailers being the worst offenders. Employers tend to favor white applicants in jobs that entail high levels of customer interaction, such as sales and retail. 

Black women get the shaft

As for women, the news wasn’t at all bad—provided you’re white. On average, women were not discriminated against for entry-level jobs. (Is that because more women than men are in the college-educated labor force?) Of course, as we all know, that playing field is not quite as leveled once women become more senior.

Black women, however, remain at the bottom of the heap from the get-go. “Distinctively white and female names were called back most often,” according to the study, “followed by white male names, then Black male names, with Black female names called back least often” (Note to expectant parents: The top three names for getting call backs are Misty, Heather, and Adam; the three least favored names by employers are Latisha, Tameka, and Lawanda.)

Fascinating findings, but is this relevant to elite professions such as finance, law or consulting where the vetting process is more rigorous and there’s a premium on diversity? From my years of covering the legal profession, I have little doubt of its relevance. 

Track record of discrimination

All this brings to mind that classic study by consulting firm Nextions in which 60 partners from 22 law firms were asked to rate a research memo by a third-year associate. Participants were told that the author was either a white or a Black associate. The upshot: The white associate scored a 4.1 out of a high grade of 5, while the African American got a 3.2.

I’m also reminded of the study (“Getting a Lawyer While Black: A Field Experiment”) that found lawyers were twice as likely to respond to potential clients with white-sounding names than Black-sounding ones. In that study, clients named “Brad” got responses 50% of the time from lawyers handling torts, criminal, and divorce matters, while “Latoya” only got one in six.

For all the talk of meritocracy and equal opportunity, we know prejudice is still a fact of life. The perennial question is what can be done to fix it. 

The power of public shaming

The economists in this latest study did something which I’ve long advocated: they outed the companies that discriminated in hiring. They also created a cool interactive discrimination report card that shows exactly where the companies in their study stand. Scoring lowest on the report card were Genuine Auto Parts and used car retailer AutoNation, followed by Costco (sorry Costco fans). Meanwhile, the top scorer was Charter/Spectrum, the cable and internet company, followed closely by Dr. Pepper. Household names like Lowes, Kohl, Kroger, Avis, FedEx, Hilton, and Target also got good grades. (It’s worth noting that Target had been sued for discriminatory hiring practices.)

As a believer in public shaming to change corporate behavior, I applaud this method. To me, it’s often the only way to push that stubborn diversity needle. (As some of you might know, I had no hesitation about  identifying and haranguing prestigious law firms with pathetic records on making Black partners.)

So are these economists (one of them, Evan Rose, from University of Chicago’s conservative economics department, no less) pushing some sort of social justice agenda? “Releasing this information demonstrates that discrimination is not inevitable,” Berkeley economics professor Patrick Kline, one of the authors of the study, told me in an email. “We hope that releasing these estimates will foster follow-up inquiry by other research teams, and perhaps the firms themselves, into which recruiting practices are most effective at mitigating organizational bias.”

In other words, the discriminating companies are on notice to clean up their hiring act. “Hopefully, the release of these report cards will further reduce bias,” Kline explained, adding that he and his fellow researchers “found evidence that previous interaction with employment lawsuits was a negative predictor of bias.”

That’s a rather obtuse, academic way of saying that there’s nothing like the threat of a lawsuit to correct bad corporate behavior. In the meantime, though, can we agree that it’s still good to be white?

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