Abstract
In this project, we examine employers’ response to Black immigrants compared to native-born Black Americans. Between July 2017 and December 2018, we applied to publicly advertised positions using fictitious resumes that are manipulated on perceived race and ethnicity (Somali American, African American, and white American). We examine the proportion of resumes that are contacted by employers. We find that male African American applicants are 5 percentage points less likely to be contacted than equivalent white American applicants. Somali American applicants are 11 percentage points less likely to be contacted by employers than equivalent white American applicants and 6 percentage points less likely to be contacted than equivalent African American applicants. For female applicants, the effects followed a similar pattern, but were muted. Signals of language ability, education, and religiosity showed little impact on the proportion contacted by an employer.
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Data Availability
All data and code will be provided to the journal (if desired) or will be posted publicly to the author’s website.
Notes
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In this context, “African American” is used to refer to Black Americans who have been in the USA for multiple generations. While first- and second-generation immigrants from Africa may also identify or be identified as “African American,” we are using this term to refer more specifically to multi-generational Black Americans.
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Somali is defined as having at least one of the following apply:
- 1.
Answering “Somalian” as either the first or second answer to “What is this person’s ancestry or ethnic origin?”
- 2.
Reported birthplace is Somalia
- 3.
Having a parent in the household who reports “Somalian” as their ancestry
- 4.
Having a parent in the household who reports their birthplace as Somalia
.
- 1.
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There are a large number of jobs that our applicants are simply not qualified for, such as truck driving positions that require a truck driving license. We do not apply for these jobs for two reasons. If we applied for these jobs, we would use time and resources on jobs that have a near-zero probability of contacting any of our fictitious applicants. This draws time away from applying for jobs that will be responsive to the treatments and reduces statistical power. Second, even if it did not reduce the number of jobs that are responsive to our treatment, the inclusion of a large number of non-responsive jobs will itself reduce the statistical power.
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Common jobs from the first tercile include dishwasher, carwash worker, or working in construction. The second tercile includes jobs like being an administrative assistant, cook, and data entry. The third tercile includes jobs like baristas, retail salespeople, customer service representatives, and being a server.
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Common jobs from the first tercile includes customer service representatives and secretaries/administrative assistants. The second tercile includes jobs such as cashiers, cooks, and servers. The third tercile includes jobs like dishwashers, janitors/cleaners, and laborers.
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Acknowledgments
This project would not have been possible without our amazing team of research assistants. We are incredibly grateful for the hard work of Pachia Xiong, Joshua Edelstein, Anna Starks, Jenna Czarnecki, Carina Anderson, Hannah Lucey, Jordan Ewings, Zach LeVene, Emily Young, Kai Tiede, and Michael Gleason. We also thank the editor and anonymous reviewers for their excellent feedback that helped strengthen this paper.
Funding
We thank the Russell Sage Foundation, the University of St. Thomas and the Minnesota Population Center (P2C HD041023) for generously providing funding for this project.
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Appendices
Appendix 1: Balance of Other Resume Elements with Respect to Key Manipulations
The work experiences included on the resumes are selected randomly. As a check, we regress an indicator variable for key groups (white American, African American, Somali American with US birthplace, Somali American with US high school) on the full list of work experience indicator variables. The following table shows the p value of the F statistic for jointly testing if any of the coefficients are significantly different from zero. None of the p values are below 0.1.
White American |
African American |
Somali American–US birthplace |
Somali American–no birthplace |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
p value of F statistic |
0.5329 |
0.9389 |
0.1472 |
0.3056 |
We also use a chi-squared test to examine if the type of extracurricular activity, education level of the resume, including honors, and address are balanced with respect to the four race/ethnicity groups. In all cases, we fail to reject the null hypothesis that the manipulations are balanced across these elements at the 0.05 level.
Variable tested |
p value on chi-squared test |
|---|---|
Type of extracurricular (religious, political, generic) |
0.683 |
Education level (college versus high school) |
0.161 |
College honors or none |
0.065 |
High school honors or none |
0.297 |
Address |
0.131 |
Appendix 2: Impact of Education and Order Sent for Different Race and Gender Groups
The resumes included numerous elements like education and order the resume was sent that we controlled for in the regressions presented in Tables 1 and 2—largely, these elements did not affect the proportion who received positive contact from the employer. However, these elements may have different impacts by race, ethnicity, and gender. Figure 15 shows the proportion of male applicants contacted for each race and ethnicity based on if they included honors in high school, if they had a college degree, if they included honors in college, and the order the resume was sent. The most notable pattern here is that for Somali American men, those that were the third or fourth resume sent were much less likely to be contacted than those that were sent first. This pattern did not show up for white American or African American men. In general, the different educational attributes did not strongly alter the proportion contacted; however, for African American men and Somali American men with a US birthplace, including honors in high school might have a larger effect than for white male applicants.
The proportion of male applicants contacted by if they included having graduate from high school with honors (upper left), college (upper right), honors in college (lower left), and order the resume was sent (lower right). n = 1768
Figure 16 shows the same relationships, except for the women. We do not see the same striking preference for the first resume sent among Somali American women that we did for men. There may be some different impacts of the education included on the resume, but these differences are not consistent. White American women who included honors in high school were contacted more than those that did not, and this pattern did not hold for African American or Somali American women. Including honors in college had a positive impact for Somali American women, but not white or African American women. Including a college degree was beneficial for African American women, but not white or Somali American women. Overall, there is no consistent pattern of differences in proportion contacted based on education.
The proportion of female applicants contacted by if they included having graduate from high school with honors (upper left), college (upper right), honors in college (lower left), and order the resume was sent (lower right). n = 1712
Appendix 3: Example of Resume
The following is an example of one of the manipulated resumes. This resume has a Somali American name, no birthplace or language skills listed, and a political activity for the extracurricular. The dates on the resumes were updated throughout the data collection period. All entries are randomly selected from publicly listed resumes. When sent, resume would be in size 12 font and one page. Resume is show here is smaller font for display purposes.
Abdullah AbukarAbdullah.Abukar16@gmail.com
1400 S 2nd Street #18
Minneapolis, Minnesota
(612)-884-7228
Employment history
December 2015–November 2017
Assistant Manager at Walmart
Responsible for hiring, placing personnel, and keeping attendance records
Performed annual job reviews
Improved team retention rate
December 2013–December 2015
Administrative Assistant for Solus LED
Organize the warehouse and track inventory
Pull and package orders to be sent out to customers
Utilize Excel to create spreadsheets for organization and daily functions
Prepare order forms and lighting rebates
Answer phone calls and emails as they come in
Re-organized the stocking and ordering process which increased efficiencies and decreased error rates
Related activities
Member of Students for Sustainability
Organized club fundraiser
Worked to educate campus and community about environmental issues and how to move into a more sustainable lifestyle
Residents worked with horse, miniature donkeys, full size donkey, goats, sheep, chickens, turkey, llamas, and cats
Club activities include bringing in speakers, Earth week, and on-campus farmer’s market
Educational qualifications
Eagan High School
June 2017
Skills
Word, Excel, and other standard programs
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Gorzig, M.M., Rho, D. Race, Religion, and Immigration: Experimental Evidence from the Labor Market. J Econ Race Policy 5, 75–97 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41996-021-00079-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41996-021-00079-0