Discrimination in a Low-Wage Labor Market: A Field Experiment Devah Pager Bruce Western Princeton University Harvard University Bart Bonikowski Princeton University Decades of racial progress have led some researchers and policymakers to doubt that discrimination remains an important cause of economic inequality. To study contemporary discrimination, we conducted a field experiment in the low-wage labor market of New York City, recruiting white, black, and Latino job applicants who were matched on demographic characteristics and interpersonal skills. These applicants were given equivalent résumés and sent to apply in tandem for hundreds of entry-level jobs. Our results show that black applicants were half as likely as equally qualified whites to receive a callback or job offer. In fact, black and Latino applicants with clean backgrounds fared no better than white applicants just released from prison. Additional qualitative evidence from our applicants’ experiences further illustrates the multiple points at which employment trajectories can be deflected by various forms of racial bias. These results point to the subtle yet systematic forms of discrimination that continue to shape employment opportunities for low-wage workers. espite legal bans on discrimination and the ity in total joblessness—including those who Dliberalization of racial attitudes since the exited the labor market—increased among 1960s, racial differences in employment remain young men during this period (Holzer and among the most enduring forms of economic Offner 2001). Against this backdrop of persist- inequality. Even in the tight labor market of the ent racial inequality, the question of employment late 1990s, unemployment rates for black men discrimination has generated renewed interest. remained twice that for whites. Racial inequal- Although there is much research on racial dis- parities in employment, the contemporary rel- evance of discrimination remains widely contested. Direct all correspondence to Devah Pager, One line of research points to the persist- Department of Sociology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544 ([email protected]). This ence of prejudice and discrimination as a criti- research has been supported by grants from the cal factor shaping contemporary racial National Science Foundation, the National Institute disparities (Darity and Mason 1998; Roscigno of Justice, the JEHT Foundation, the Princeton et al. 2007). A series of studies relying on sur- Research Institute on the Region, and the Industrial veys and in-depth interviews finds that firms are Relations Section of Princeton University. The first reluctant to hire young minority men—espe- author acknowledges generous support from NSF cially blacks—because they are seen as unreli- CAREER, NIH K01, and a W.T. Grant Scholars able, dishonest, or lacking in social or cognitive Award. We also gratefully acknowledge the support skills (Holzer 1996; Kirschenman and of the New York City Commission on Human Rights, and Commissioner Patricia Gatling. Thanks to Glenn Neckerman 1991; Moss and Tilly 2001; Martin, Don Green, and the many workshop partic- Waldinger and Lichter 2003; Wilson 1996: chap. ipants who provided generous feedback on earlier 5). The strong negative attitudes expressed by drafts of this article. employers suggest that race remains highly AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW, 2009, VOL. 74 (October:777–799) 778—–AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW salient in employers’ evaluations of workers. to assess exactly how and under what conditions At the same time, research relying on inter- race shapes employer behavior. We address this views with employers leaves uncertain the issue with a field experiment that allows direct degree to which self-reported attitudes are influ- observation of employer decision making. By ential in actual hiring decisions (Pager and presenting equally qualified applicants who dif- Quillian 2005). Indeed, Moss and Tilly fer only by race or ethnicity, we can observe the (2001:151) report the puzzling finding that degree to which racial considerations affect real “businesses where a plurality of managers com- hiring decisions. Furthermore, we move beyond plained about black motivation are more likely experimental estimates of discrimination to to hire black men.” In fact, across a series of explore the processes by which discrimination analyses controlling for firm size, starting wage, occurs. Examining the interactions between job the percent black in the relevant portion of the seekers and employers, we gain new insights metropolitan area, and a business’s average dis- into how race influences employers’ percep- tance from black residents in the area, Moss and tions of job candidate quality and desirability. Tilly find that employers who overtly criticize Studying the multifaceted character of dis- the hard skills or interaction skills of black crimination highlights the range of decisions that workers are between two and four times more collectively reduce opportunities for minority likely to hire a black worker (pp.151–52). Hiring candidates. decisions, of course, are influenced by a com- plex range of factors, racial attitudes being only CONCEPTUALIZING one. Employers’ stated preferences do not pro- DISCRIMINATION vide a clear picture of the degree to which neg- ative attitudes about blacks translate into active Empirical studies often portray discrimination forms of discrimination. as a single decision. Research on employment Research focusing on wages rather than disparities, for example, considers the role of employment offers even less evidence of con- discrimination at the point of initial hire; temporary discrimination. Neal and Johnson research on pay disparities considers discrimi- (1996), for example, estimate wage differences nation at the point of wage-setting decisions. In between white, black, and Latino young men. reality, discrimination may occur at multiple They find that two thirds of the black-white decision points across the employment rela- gap in wages in 1990 to 1991 can be explained tionship. In this way, even relatively small by race differences in cognitive test scores meas- episodes of discrimination—when experienced ured 11 years earlier, and test scores fully at multiple intervals or across multiple con- explain wage differences between whites and texts—can have substantial effects on aggregate Latinos. This and similar studies trace the outcomes. employment problems of young minority men Depictions of discriminators also often por- primarily to skill or other individual deficien- tray the labor market as divided neatly between cies, rather than any direct effect of discrimi- employers with a “taste for discrimination” and nation (Farkas and Vicknair 1996; Neal and those who are indifferent to race (Becker 1957). Johnson 1996; O’Neill 1990). Heckman Consequently, it is suggested, job seekers can (1998:101–102) puts the point most clearly, avoid discrimination by sorting themselves into writing that “most of the disparity in earnings sectors of the labor market where discrimination between blacks and whites in the labor market is less likely to occur (Heckman 1998:103). of the 1990s is due to differences in skills they Fryer and Levitt (2003:5) characterize employ- bring to the market, and not to discrimination ers according to a similar dichotomy, with appli- within the labor market.” He goes on to describe cants best advised to identify and avoid labor market discrimination as “the problem of employers prone to discrimination, rather than an earlier era.” wasting time pursuing job opportunities among Does employer discrimination continue to firms unwilling to hire them: “In the face of dis- affect labor market outcomes for minority work- criminatory employers, it is actually in the inter- ers? Clear answers are elusive because dis- est of both employee and employers for Blacks crimination is hard to measure. Without to signal race, either via a name or other résumé observing actual hiring decisions, it is difficult information, rather than undertaking a costly DISCRIMINATION IN A LOW-WAGE LABOR MARKET—–779 interview with little hope of receiving a job In addition to noting the varying role of race offer.” According to this conceptualization of across employment interactions, some research labor market discrimination, racial preferences shifts the focus from employer characteristics to or biases are fixed and concentrated among a the characteristics of the job for which a given specific subset of employers. worker is being considered. Previous research Other evidence challenges this tidy distinc- points to the negative consequences of the tion between employers who do and do not dis- changing composition of low-wage jobs for criminate. Alternative formulations of labor black men, with the shift from manufacturing market discrimination encourage us to view the to services skewing the distribution of skill process as more interactive, contextual, and demands toward “soft skills,” for which black widespread. Theories of both statistical dis- men are considered lacking (Moss and Tilly crimination and stereotypes view race as a 2001). Jobs involving customer service or con- heuristic employers use to evaluate job appli- tact with clients heighten the salience of race cants about whom little is known. Here, group- because of employers’concerns about the dress based generalizations provide guidance about and demeanor of young black men (Moss and the expected profile of individuals from a given Tilly 2001). Jobs at the “back of