One of Twenty Facts About U.S. Inequality that Everyone Should Know

Racial Discrimination

Racial discrimination continues to be in the labor market. An experiment carried out in Chicago and Boston during 2001 and 2002 shows that resumes with �white-sounding� names, whether male or female, were much more likely to result in call backs for interviews than were those with �black-sounding� names (even though the resumes were otherwise identical).

Interview call-back rate for women with �white� names and �black� names

Source: Bertrand, Marianne and Sendhil Mullainathan. 2004. �Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal?� American Economic Review 94(4): 991-1013.