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Do workers discriminate against their out-group employers? Evidence from an online platform economy

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  • Asad, Sher Afghan
  • Banerjee, Ritwik
  • Bhattacharya, Joydeep

Abstract

We study possible labor market discrimination by workers towards their out-group employers as manifested via social preferences (altruism and reciprocity). We run a well-powered, model-based, lab-in-the-field experiment, recruiting 6,000 white American worker subjects from Amazon's M-Turk platform for a real-effort task. We also hire trainer subjects, our stand-in for employers, from a university. To worker subjects, we randomly (and unobtrusively) reveal the racial identity of the trainers, who may be white or black. We find evidence that white workers may discriminate against white employers based on altruism (working harder due to concern for the employer's well-being). However, they may discriminate in favor of their white employers based on reciprocity (working harder because of a small gift). From the perspective of black (white) employers, altruism evokes a stronger (weaker) effort response, but gift-giving has no (positive) effect. Taken together, the combined effect of altruism and reciprocity on worker effort is the same for black and white employers.

Suggested Citation

  • Asad, Sher Afghan & Banerjee, Ritwik & Bhattacharya, Joydeep, 2023. "Do workers discriminate against their out-group employers? Evidence from an online platform economy," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 216(C), pages 221-242.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:216:y:2023:i:c:p:221-242
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2023.10.002
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Discrimination; Worker-to-employer; Social preferences; Taste-based discrimination; Online economy; Mechanical Turk; Structural behavioral economics;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J71 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - Hiring and Firing
    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
    • C93 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Field Experiments

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