Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination

This study investigates the extent of racial discrimination in the U.S. labor market by conducting a large-scale field experiment. The researchers sent nearly 5,000 fictitious resumes in response to over 1,300 help-wanted ads in Boston and Chicago newspapers. To isolate the effect of race, the authors randomly assigned either a very White-sounding name (e.g., Emily Walsh, Greg Baker) or a very African American-sounding name (e.g., Lakisha Washington, Jamal Jones) to otherwise identical resumes. They also experimentally varied the quality of the resumes to determine if higher credentials could mitigate potential discrimination.

The experiment revealed substantial racial bias in hiring. Applicants with White-sounding names were 50 percent more likely to receive a callback for an interview than those with African American-sounding names. This gap was consistent across various industries and occupations, and it persisted even among employers who explicitly stated they were Equal Opportunity Employers or were federal contractors.

Crucially, the study found that race significantly impacts the return on investment for resume quality. While White applicants saw a 30 percent increase in callbacks when their resumes were improved with better credentials, African American applicants experienced a much smaller, statistically insignificant increase. This suggests that discrimination not only creates a barrier to entry but also reduces the incentive for African American job seekers to invest in skill development, as their credentials are systematically discounted by employers.

These findings provide robust evidence that racial discrimination remains a prominent feature of the labor market. By using a randomized field experiment, the authors effectively bypassed the limitations of traditional survey data, which often struggle to distinguish between discrimination and unobserved differences in applicant productivity. The results challenge the notion that discrimination is merely a relic of the past or that it can be easily overcome by individual efforts to improve qualifications. The study highlights that systemic biases in the initial screening process significantly disadvantage African American candidates regardless of their objective merit.