European Sociological Review, 2020, Vol. 36, No. 1, 104–120 doi: 10.1093/esr/jcz045 Advance Access Publication Date: 8 October 2019 Original Article Ethnic Discrimination in Multi-ethnic Societies: Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/esr/article-abstract/36/1/104/5583786 by University of Exeter user on 02 March 2020 Evidence from Russia Alexey Bessudnov 1,* and Andrey Shcherbak 2 1University of Exeter, Clayden Building, Streatham Rise, Exeter EX4 4PE, UK and 2National Research University Higher School of Economics, 20 Myasnitskaya ul., Moscow 101000, Russia *Corresponding author. Email:
[email protected] Submitted February 2019; revised July 2019; accepted August 2019 Abstract Field experiments have provided ample evidence of ethnic and racial discrimination in the labour market. Less is known about how discrimination varies in multi-ethnic societies, where the ethnic composition of populations is different across locations. Inter-group contact and institutional arrange- ments for ethnic minorities can mitigate the sense of group threat and reduce discrimination. To pro- vide empirical evidence of this, we conduct a field experiment of ethnic discrimination in Russia with a sample of over 9,000 job applications. We compare ethnically homogeneous cities and cities with ethnically mixed populations and privileged institutional status of ethnic minorities. We find strong discrimination against visible minorities in the former but much weaker discrimination in the latter. These findings demonstrate how institutions and historical contexts of inter-group relations can affect ethnic prejudice and discrimination. Introduction applicants from minority groups. Racial and ethnic dis- crimination in the labour market is well documented. The field experiment has now become a standard In this article, we present the results of the first ethnic method for studying racial and ethnic discrimination in discrimination experiment conducted in Russia.