Discrimination in the workplace and in recruitment.

Discrimination in the workplace and in recruitment.

Discrimination in the workplace is a context in which people with equal performance (the same educational or professional backgrounds) are not treated equally by the employer because of certain characteristics (Carcillo & Valfort, 2018).
Discrimination theories are based on the fact that people who are part of the so-called “majority” group and occupy positions of authority in their work want to maintain their dominance by excluding people who are different from them whether in terms of ethnicity or gender (Smith, 2002).

Discrimination is present in the world of work and recruitment. Recruitment is a process concerned with the search for and identification of potential candidates (Jewson and Mason cited in Van den Brink, 2010).
However, according to Article L1132-1 of the Labour Code, this discrimination is prohibited. Indeed, according to this Article, “No person may be excluded from a recruitment or appointment procedure or from access to an internship or a period of training in a company, no employee may be sanctioned, dismissed or be the subject of a direct or indirect discriminatory measure”.
During a recruitment situation, stereotypical elements can have an influence. Indeed, it gives the recruiter the feeling of knowing the candidate he is confronted with and therefore facilitates his choice in order to select from several candidates the one who seems to be the best match for the job (Desrumaux, De Bosscher & Léoni, 2009).
In their study, Hosoda, Stone, and Stone-Romero (2003), measured the interaction between race, gender, and job type for hiring decisions, and they show that hiring decisions can be determined by the race and gender of the applicant as well as the nature of the job. 

Thanks to curriculum vitae testing, we can see that the fictitious candidates only differ on elements that have nothing to do with their skills or their career path, but by elements such as gender or ethnic origin for example. Thus, the difference observed between two candidates will be seen as discrimination. The principle of this method is to apply to real job offers by sending resumes and cover letters representing fictitious candidates. (Carcillo & Valfort, 2020). 

In the same way, Bertrand and Mullainathan in 2004 also conducted an experiment using curriculum vitae and a matching test methodology. They randomly assigned “white” sounding names such as Emily Wash or Greg Baker to one half of the curriculum vitae and “African American” sounding names such as Lakisha Washington or Jamal Jones to the other half.
They also manipulated the quality of the resumes to see whether or not qualifications affected the racial gap. The results show that applicants with white-sounding names would have to send in about 10 curriculum vita for recruiters to call them back. Applicants with African-American names would have to send in about 15 curriculum vitae. There is a significant 50% difference between the two groups of candidates.
They also note that white names with higher quality resumes are called back more (11%) than those with lower quality resumes (8.5%), this significant difference is about 27%. 

Furthermore, another study that also looked at both gender and race discrimination was Elliott and Smith’s 2004 study. They show that men and women of different races or ethnicities experience inequalities (compared to white men) in command at work, but through different mechanisms and not on the same scale. In fact, for Latinos and white women, these inequalities come mainly from deficiencies in human capital (in this case, education for Latinos and work experience for white women) compared to white men. For these authors, it would therefore be interesting to enrich the human capital of these people in order to achieve greater equivalence in obtaining power at work. However, even if human capital were enriched, white men might “close ranks” with Latinos, since the declining difference in human capital between these groups might increase competition. 

Lastly, according to Wood et al (2009), favouring white candidates over black candidates would only be in the early stages of recruitment. Furthermore, it would appear that superiors are in positions of power that they lead with people who are similar to them, regardless of gender or race.
However, there are more white men in positions of power at work, so these white men may develop this “self-similar preference” more and this preference could therefore be observed in subsequent generations (Elliott & Smith, 2004). 

Bibliography :

Article L1132-1 – Code du travail – Légifrance. (s.d.). Consulté 16 octobre 2020, à l’adresse https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/codes/article_lc/LEGIARTI000042026716/2020-06-23

Bertrand, M., & Mullainathan, S. (2004). Are Emily and Greg are more employable than Lakisha and Jamal? A field experiment on labor market discrimination. The American Economic Review, 94(4), 991-1013. doi:10.1257/0002828042002561

Carcillo, S., & Valfort, M. A. (2018). Les discriminations au travail: Femmes, ethnicité, religion, âge, apparence, LGBT. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po.

Carcillo, S. & Valfort, M. A. (2020). Lutter contre les discriminations sur le marché du travail. Notes du conseil d’analyse économique, 56(2), 1-12. https://doi.org/10.3917/ncae.056.0001

Desrumaux, P., De Bosscher, S., & Léoni, V. (2009). Effects of facial attractiveness, gender and competence of applicants on job recruitment. Swiss Journal of Psychology, 68, 33- 42. doi.org/10.1024/1421-0185.68

Elliott, J. R., & Smith, R. A. (2004). Race, Gender, and workplace power. American Sociological Review, 69(3), 365-386. doi:10.1177/000312240406900303

Hosoda, M., Stone, D. L., & Stone-Romero, E. F. (2003). The interactive effects of race, gender and job type on job suitability ratings and selection decisions. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 33 (1), 145-178.

Smith, R. (2002). Race, Gender, and Authority in the Workplace: Theory and Research. Annual Review of Sociology, 28, 509-542. doi:10.1146/annurev.soc.28.110601.141048

Van den Brink, M. (2010). Behind the Scenes of Science: Gender Practices in the Recruitment and Selection of Professors in the Netherlands. In Practicing gender in academic gatekeeping (p. 107-136). Amsterdam University Press.

Wood, M., Hales, J., Purdon, S., Sejersen, T., & Hayllar, O. (2009). A test for racial discrimination in recruitment practice in British cities. Department for Work and Pensions Research Report, 607.