A test for racial discrimination | findings

Recruitment practice in British cities

Apr 2010 |
Topic | Employment, Skills & Education
Researchers | Martin Wood

We applied for nearly a thousand advertised jobs using equivalent job applications. These fictious applications were randomly assigned names associated with white and minority ethnic groups.

The outcomes of these applications allowed us to estimate the extent of racial discrimination in the early stages of recruitment in British cities. We uncovered significant and widespread discrimination.

  1. For each job interview invitation, 16 job applications had to be sent from ethnic minority candidates, compared to nine from white candidates.
  2. Same level of discrimination across all cities and occupations
  3. No discrimination found among employers using their own application forms
  4. Public sector employers are less likely to discriminate
  5. All minority ethnic groups were discriminated against
For each job interview invitation, 16 job applications had to be sent from ethnic minority candidates, compared to nine from white candidates.

The test uncovered a considerable amount of discrimination. We had to send 74 per cent more applications from ethnic minority applicants to get the same level of success. This was despite the applications being equivalent.  The only systematic difference between the applications was the name of the applicant.

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Same level of discrimination across all cities and occupations

There was little to suggest that discrimination was limited to particular areas or occupations.  Although the numbers in our sample were small, there was evidence of similar levels of discrimination in all the cities and it was present across all the occupations included in our study.

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No discrimination found among employers using their own application forms

We found a very large difference in discrimination between different types of applications. There was essentially no net discrimination where the process of applying for the job required the use of the employer's own form.  This compared to a high level of discrimination where application was via a CV.

This may well reflect the fact that employer forms are often designed so that the section containing personal details (including name) can be detached before the sifting process.

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Public sector employers are less likely to discriminate

Public sector employers in our test were considerably less likely to have discriminated
on the grounds of race than those in the private sector.  This may relate to the point above - more of the public sector organisations in our test required that we use their form to apply.

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All minority ethnic groups were discriminated against

Discrimination appeared to be widespread to the detriment of all minority ethnic groups.
Differences between the minority ethnic groups included in the study (black African, black Caribbean, Chinese, Indian, Pakistani/Bangladeshi) were not significant.

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