You’re white? Please come again!

Is race an important factor when hiring a person? That was the question that Devah Pager, an American sociologist, tried to answer.

The study focused  on job interviews. In order to compare the difference between black and white when dealing with hiring decisions, Devah Pager looked at the likelihood that job appliers were called back for a job interview. Therefore she divided the applicants in four groups: black people and white people, both with or without a criminal record. The results of her study in 2003 were quite shocking. She found that white applicants (without a criminal record) were most likely to be called back whereas their black counterparts with a criminal record were the least likely to be invited. Although it isn’t very surprising that someone with a criminal record isn’t loved by most employers, there is a huge difference between black and white applicants: white applicants are almost twice as much called back! So it seems that racism isn’t a problem of the past.

Martijn De Meyer

(link to the article)