The ADIS study: A large-scale correspondence test on labor market discrimination in Germany - Technical Report

The Arbeitsmarktdiskriminierung "ADIS" project is a large scale correspondence study that was conducted in Germany between October 2014 and April 2016 with the aim to study labor market discrimination against second generation immigrants. In particular, the experiment was designed for two purposes: First, to decompose drivers of ethnic discrimination in the labor market and to understand the role of phenotype, country of origin, and religion in order to explain ethnic hierarchies; and second, to test economic theories of taste-based and statistical discrimination models, in order to explain discriminatory hiring decisions. Previous studies on ethnic labor market discrimination have provided strong evidence of its occurrence, but provide limited insight into the mechanisms behind it and the causes of variation in rates of discrimination against different ethnic, racial, and religious groups. In this report we describe our multidimensional design that tests rates of discrimination across 35 ethnic groups, for which we vary productivity relevant information (such as grades and reference letters) as well as phenotype and religious background of the applicants. The study is based on applications to 7,557 job vacancies with male and female applicants in eight professions across Germany. In this technical report we will discuss our research design in depth and give detailed insight into the implementation of the study and the challenges during data collection, with a main focus on the choice of the individual treatments and how they were operationalized.