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Some companies discriminated against Black applicants much more than others, and H.R. practices made a big difference.
A group of economists recently performed an experiment on around 100 of the largest companies in the country, applying for jobs using made-up résumés with equivalent qualifications but different personal characteristics. They changed applicants’ names to suggest that they were white or Black, and male or female — Latisha or Amy, Lamar or Adam.
On Monday, they released the names of the companies. On average, they found, employers contacted the presumed white applicants 9.5 percent more often than the presumed Black applicants.
Yet this practice varied significantly by firm and industry. One-fifth of the companies — many of them retailers or car dealers — were responsible for nearly half of the gap in callbacks to white and Black applicants.
Two companies favored white applicants over Black applicants significantly more than others. They were AutoNation, a used car retailer, which contacted presumed white applicants 43 percent more often, and Genuine Parts Company, which sells auto parts including under the NAPA brand, and called presumed white candidates 33 percent more often.
In a statement, Heather Ross, a spokeswoman for Genuine Parts, said, “We are always evaluating our practices to ensure inclusivity and break down barriers, and we will continue to do so.” AutoNation did not respond to a request for comment.
Companies With the Largest and Smallest Racial Contact Gaps
Of the 97 companies in the experiment, two stood out as contacting presumed white job applicants significantly more often than presumed Black ones. At 14 companies, there was little or no difference in how often they called back the presumed white or Black applicants.
Companies where the racial gap was the largest
Companies where the racial gap was the smallest
Sample Résumés From the Experiment
Fictitious résumés sent to large U.S. companies revealed a preference, on average, for candidates whose names suggested that they were white.
Résumés with distinctively white names
“Todd”
“Allison”
Résumés with distinctively Black names
“Lakisha”
“Leroy”
To assign names, the researchers started with a prior list that had been assembled using Massachusetts birth certificates from 1974 to 1979. They then supplemented this list with names found in a database of speeding tickets issued in North Carolina between 2006 and 2018, classifying a name as “distinctive” if more than 90 percent of people with that name were of a particular race.
Source: Patrick Kline, Evan K. Rose and Christopher R. Walters
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