The state of hiring discrimination: A meta-analysis of (almost) all recent correspondence experiments

Abstract

Notwithstanding the improved integration of various minority groups in the workforce, unequal treatment in hiring still hinders many individuals’ access to the labour market. To tackle this inaccessibility, it is essential to know which and to what extent minority groups face hiring discrimination. This meta-analysis synthesises a quasi-exhaustive register of correspondence experiments on hiring discrimination published between 2005 and 2020. Using a random-effects model, we computed pooled discrimination ratios concerning ten discrimination grounds upon which unequal treatment in hiring is forbidden by law. Our meta-analysis shows that hiring discrimination against candidates with disabilities, older candidates, and less physically attractive candidates seems equally severe as the unequal treatment of candidates with salient racial or ethnic characteristics. Moreover, hiring discrimination against older applicants is more prominent in Europe than in the United States. Last, while we initially find a significant decrease in ethnic hiring discrimination in (Western) Europe, we find no structural evidence of recent temporal changes in hiring discrimination when controlling for the minority groups considered, at the country level, or based on the various other grounds within the scope of this review.