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Headscarf and job recruitment—lifting the veil of labour market discrimination

Author

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  • Attakrit Leckcivilize

    (University of Aberdeen)

  • Alexander Straub

    (Leibniz Universität Hannover)

Abstract

This paper investigates effects of appearance and religious practice of job applicants on the hiring decision. We asked participants in our laboratory experiment to select fictitious candidates for an interview from a pool of CVs with comparable characteristics but different photos. Some photos were of the same Turkish women with and without a headscarf. We demonstrate the effects of appearance, ethnicity, and veiling simultaneously and propose underlying mechanisms. We find robust effects of appearance but heterogeneous effects of headscarf on callback rates based on types of occupations and recruiters’ characteristics. However, positive characteristics mitigate discrimination against headscarf and even reverse it.

Suggested Citation

  • Attakrit Leckcivilize & Alexander Straub, 2018. "Headscarf and job recruitment—lifting the veil of labour market discrimination," IZA Journal of Labor Economics, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 7(1), pages 1-32, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:izalbr:v:7:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1186_s40172-018-0071-x
    DOI: 10.1186/s40172-018-0071-x
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    Cited by:

    1. Jennifer Kunz & Laura Michele Ludwig, 2022. "Curbing Discriminating Human Resource Practices—A Microfounded Perspective," Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, Springer, vol. 74(3), pages 307-344, September.
    2. Leckcivilize, Attakrit & Straub, Alexander, 2020. "Your wingman could help you land a job: How beauty composition of applicants affects the call-back probability," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    3. Selda Dudu, 2022. "Employability and Labor Income of Immigrants in the US: A Special Focus on the Roles of Language and Home Country Income Level," World Journal of Applied Economics, WERI-World Economic Research Institute, vol. 8(1), pages 15-34, June.
    4. Hatice Karahan & Nigar Tugsuz, 2021. "The Silent Discrimination against Headscarved Professionals in the Turkish Labor Market: The Case of Women in the Banking Sector," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(20), pages 1-15, October.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Labour discrimination; Beauty; Ethnicity; Economics of religion;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J71 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - Hiring and Firing
    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior

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