Abstract
Numerous studies in the field of discrimination research find discrimination in the hiring process of applicants from ethnic minorities (e.g. Bertrand and Duflo 2017, Carlson and Roth 2006; Kaas and Manger 2011, SVR 2014). Apart from an observational study from Norway (Helland and Støren 2006), little is known about pre K-12 discrimination against students who apply for an apprenticeship or vocational training when leaving middle school. Although ten-thousands are enrolled in this type of Vocational Training with cooperation and businesses, it has not yet been researched whether certificates of prior economic knowledge can mitigate the disadvantages of preference-based discrimination (e.g. rascism). We conducted a field experiment to examine these research questions with empirical data.
In a randomized, controlled study, starting in spring of 2024, we sent around 8 k email inquiries in three business sectors (public administration, industry and services) to companies that had reported training positions to local job centers in German cities. We block-randomized the treatments into (5*2*2*2 = 50) dimensions at the level of industries and federal states: First, we varied the migration background (German, Turkish, Russian, Arab and Jewish) of the applicants by choosing German, Turkish or Russian or Israeli or Arab given sounding names. Second, we varied the gender (female vs. male) of the applicants. Third, we varied the expected grade point average (very good vs. satisfactory) after 10 years of school with the completion of the technical college entrance qualification. The fourth treatment dimension varied previous economic knowledge acquired in an internship.
In the summer of 2024 we fielded a survey with a sub-sample of the treated individuals, confronted them with our findings and asked about their perceptions why young migrant applicants receive less answers compared to German applicants in open-ended questions (Stancheva 2022).
The participants reported significant differences in perceived perseverance across migrant backgrounds and varying levels of cultural distance. Both factors might attribute to estimate opportunity costs of hiring a migrant applicant.
To test the robustness of these findings, we designed and implemented a field experiment in the spring of 2025. The experiment focused specifically on Turkish versus German applicants, allowing for a more precise examination of cultural distance effects.
We employed 2*2*2*3 treatment design, varying binary applicant characteristics as gender (female vs. male) and academic performance (high and low GPA), while introducing three distinct volunteering activities as signals of cultural assimilation.
First, voluteering for a German-Turkish club (signalling out affinity to Turkish cultural life), second, volunteering for a natural science club at school (signaling perseverance), and third, a control condition with no volunteering experience.