Discrimination in a Low-Wage Labor
Market: A Field Experiment
Devah Pager Bruce Western
Princeton University Harvard University
Bart Bonikowski
Princeton University
Decades of racial progress have led some researchers and policymakers to doubt that
discrimination remains an important cause of economic inequality. To study
contemporary discrimination, we conducted a field experiment in the low-wage labor
market of New York City, recruiting white, black, and Latino job applicants who were
matched on demographic characteristics and interpersonal skills. These applicants were
given equivalent résumés and sent to apply in tandem for hundreds of entry-level jobs.
Our results show that black applicants were half as likely as equally qualified whites to
receive a callback or job offer. In fact, black and Latino applicants with clean
backgrounds fared no better than white applicants just released from prison. Additional
qualitative evidence from our applicants’ experiences further illustrates the multiple
points at which employment trajectories can be deflected by various forms of racial bias.
These results point to the subtle yet systematic forms of discrimination that continue to
shape employment opportunities for low-wage workers.
AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW, 2009, VOL. 74 (October:777–799)
Direct all correspondence to Devah Pager,
Department of Sociology, Princeton University,
Princeton, NJ 08544 (pager@princeton.edu). This
research has been supported by grants from the
National Science Foundation, the National Institute
of Justice, the JEHT Foundation, the Princeton
Research Institute on the Region, and the Industrial
Relations Section of Princeton University. The first
author acknowledges generous support from NSF
CAREER, NIH K01, and a W.T. Grant Scholars
Award. We also gratefully acknowledge the support
of the New York City Commission on Human Rights,
and Commissioner Patricia Gatling. Thanks to Glenn
Martin, Don Green, and the many workshop participants who provided generous feedback on earlier
drafts of this article.
salient in employers’ evaluations of workers.
At the same time, research relying on interviews with employers leaves uncertain the
degree to which self-reported attitudes are influential in actual hiring decisions (Pager and
Quillian 2005). Indeed, Moss and Tilly
(2001:151) report the puzzling finding that
“businesses where a plurality of managers complained about black motivation are more likely
to hire black men.” In fact, across a series of
analyses controlling for firm size, starting wage,
the percent black in the relevant portion of the
metropolitan area, and a business’s average distance from black residents in the area, Moss and
Tilly find that employers who overtly criticize
the hard skills or interaction skills of black
workers are between two and four times more
likely to hire a black worker (pp.151–52). Hiring
decisions, of course, are influenced by a complex range of factors, racial attitudes being only
one. Employers’stated preferences do not provide a clear picture of the degree to which negative attitudes about blacks translate into active
forms of discrimination.
Research focusing on wages rather than
employment offers even less evidence of contemporary discrimination. Neal and Johnson
(1996), for example, estimate wage differences
between white, black, and Latino young men.
They find that two thirds of the black-white
gap in wages in 1990 to 1991 can be explained
by race differences in cognitive test scores measured 11 years earlier, and test scores fully
explain wage differences between whites and
Latinos. This and similar studies trace the
employment problems of young minority men
primarily to skill or other individual deficiencies, rather than any direct effect of discrimination (Farkas and Vicknair 1996; Neal and
Johnson 1996; O’Neill 1990). Heckman
(1998:101–102) puts the point most clearly,
writing that “most of the disparity in earnings
between blacks and whites in the labor market
of the 1990s is due to differences in skills they
bring to the market, and not to discrimination
within the labor market.” He goes on to describe
labor market discrimination as “the problem of
an earlier era.”
Does employer discrimination continue to
affect labor market outcomes for minority workers? Clear answers are elusive because discrimination is hard to measure. Without
observing actual hiring decisions, it is difficult
to assess exactly how and under what conditions
race shapes employer behavior. We address this
issue with a field experiment that allows direct
observation of employer decision making. By
presenting equally qualified applicants who differ only by race or ethnicity, we can observe the
degree to which racial considerations affect real
hiring decisions. Furthermore, we move beyond
experimental estimates of discrimination to
explore the processes by which discrimination
occurs. Examining the interactions between job
seekers and employers, we gain new insights
into how race influences employers’ perceptions of job candidate quality and desirability.
Studying the multifaceted character of discrimination highlights the range of decisions that
collectively reduce opportunities for minority
candidates.
CONCEPTUALIZING
DISCRIMINATION
Empirical studies often portray discrimination
as a single decision. Research on employment
disparities, for example, considers the role of
discrimination at the point of initial hire;
research on pay disparities considers discrimination at the point of wage-setting decisions. In
reality, discrimination may occur at multiple
decision points across the employment relationship. In this way, even relatively small
episodes of discrimination—when experienced
at multiple intervals or across multiple contexts—can have substantial effects on aggregate
outcomes.
Depictions of discriminators also often portray the labor market as divided neatly between
employers with a “taste for discrimination” and
those who are indifferent to race (Becker 1957).
Consequently, it is suggested, job seekers can
avoid discrimination by sorting themselves into
sectors of the labor market where discrimination
is less likely to occur (Heckman 1998:103).
Fryer and Levitt (2003:5) characterize employers according to a similar dichotomy, with applicants best advised to identify and avoid
employers prone to discrimination, rather than
wasting time pursuing job opportunities among
firms unwilling to hire them: “In the face of discriminatory employers, it is actually in the interest of both employee and employers for Blacks
to signal race, either via a name or other résumé
information, rather than undertaking a costly
778—–AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW
interview with little hope of receiving a job
offer.” According to this conceptualization of
labor market discrimination, racial preferences
or biases are fixed and concentrated among a
specific subset of employers.
Other evidence challenges this tidy distinction between employers who do and do not discriminate. Alternative formulations of labor
market discrimination encourage us to view the
process as more interactive, contextual, and
widespread. Theories of both statistical discrimination and stereotypes view race as a
heuristic employers use to evaluate job applicants about whom little is known. Here, groupbased generalizations provide guidance about
the expected profile of individuals from a given
group and facilitate decision making when information or time are scarce (Aigner and Cain
1977; Fiske 1998). Heuristics of this kind are
pervasive (and often unconscious). Their effects
may vary depending on the availability of and
attention to person-specific information (such
as that conveyed through application materials
or in an interview) that may interact with and
potentially override initial expectations.
A long line of social psychological research
investigates how stereotypes give way to individualizing information, as well as the conditions under which stereotypes demonstrate a
stubborn resistance to change (Bodenhausen
1988; Fiske 1998; Trope and Thomson 1997).1
This research suggests that salient personalizing information can quickly counteract stereotyped expectations; however, in evaluating
difficult-to-observe or ambiguously relevant
characteristics, or when decision makers have
competing demands on their attention, stereotypes often filter information in ways that preserve expectations (Darley and Gross 1983;
Dovidio and Gaertner 2000; Gilbert and Hixon
1991). In these cases of decision making under
uncertainty, racial preferences or biases are
unlikely to be expressed in any static or uniform
way, but will vary in intensity and consequence
depending on other characteristics of the applicant, the employer, and the interaction between
the two.
In addition to noting the varying role of race
across employment interactions, some research
shifts the focus from employer characteristics to
the characteristics of the job for which a given
worker is being considered. Previous research
points to the negative consequences of the
changing composition of low-wage jobs for
black men, with the shift from manufacturing
to services skewing the distribution of skill
demands toward “soft skills,” for which black
men are considered lacking (Moss and Tilly
2001). Jobs involving customer service or contact with clients heighten the salience of race
because of employers’ concerns about the dress
and demeanor of young black men (Moss and
Tilly 2001). Jobs at the “back of the house” or
those emphasizing manual skills are less likely to activate concerns of this kind. In this scenario, discrimination may obtain not at the
employer level but at the job level, with black
applicants excluded from some job types and
channeled into others. In this case, we would
look to variation in discrimination not among
employers but among the job openings for which
workers are being considered.
Rather than viewing discrimination as a single decision, or as the result of a small group of
highly prejudiced employers, a growing body of
research points to the variable contexts that
shape how information about applicants may be
filtered and interpreted along racial lines.
Decision making under uncertainty and the
race-typing of jobs both make discrimination
more likely. To capture the contingent and cumulative effects of discrimination implied by these
theories requires an examination of how experiences of discrimination may be distributed
across a wide range of decision points and may
vary depending on interactions among the
employer, the applicant, and the job in question.
THE CHANGING LANDSCAPE OF
LOW-WAGE LABOR MARKETS
Economic theory predicts the decline of discrimination through market competition (Becker
1957), but several features of contemporary
low-wage labor markets may sustain or renew
racialized decision making. Shifts in the composition of both low-wage jobs and workers
have potentially created new incentives and
opportunities for employers to enact racial preferences in hiring. First, low-wage job growth is
DISCRIMINATION IN A LOW-WAGE LABOR MARKET—–779
1Theories of statistical discrimination also predict
employer responsiveness to individual characteristics
(e.g., Altonji and Pierret 2001; Oettinger 1996; cf.
Pager and Karafin 2009).
concentrated in service industries, in positions
that place a heavy emphasis on self-presentation,
interaction with customers, and other personality-related attributes (Moss and Tilly 2001). As
discussed earlier, employers consistently express
concerns over the “soft skills” of black men,
implying a potential skills mismatch between the
skill requirements of new job growth and the
perceived skill profile of black male job seekers. Furthermore, because many of the qualities
valued by employers for contemporary lowwage jobs are difficult to evaluate from a written application or brief meeting, generalized
negative perceptions of minority workers may
be more difficult for individual minority applicants to disconfirm (Biernat and Kobrynowicz
1997).
Second, low-wage labor markets today are
characterized by increasing heterogeneity of
the urban minority work force, with low-skill
black workers now more likely to compete with
other minority groups—in particular, low-skill
Latino workers. Interviews with employers in
Los Angeles and Chicago suggest consistent
preferences for Latinos over blacks, with Latino
workers viewed as more pliant, reliable, and
hard-working (Kirschenman and Neckerman
1991; Waldinger and Lichter 2003). Given these
racial preferences among employers, growing
competition within the low-wage labor market
may leave black men vulnerable to discrimination relative not only to whites, but to Latinos
as well.
Finally, low-wage labor markets are increasingly supplied by workers with criminal records.
Nearly a third of black men without a college
degree have prison records by their mid-30s,
adding to employers’ reservations about black
male job applicants (Pager 2007b; Pettit and
Western 2004). The high rate of incarceration
makes a criminal record a newly important
source of stigma that is worth studying in its own
right. Moreover, we can view a criminal record
as an extreme and authoritative signal of the
kinds of problematic behaviors that employers
ascribe to young black men. In this context,
separating the effects of criminal stigma from
race provides a useful benchmark for measuring racial stigma. In the first effort in this direction, Pager’s (2003) research in a Milwaukee
field experiment compared racial and criminal
stigma among matched pairs of job seekers.
Fielding a pair of black and a pair of white job
applicants (in which one member of each pair
was randomly assigned a criminal record), Pager
found that a black applicant with no criminal
background experiences job prospects similar
to those of a white felon. That blackness confers the same disadvantage as a felony conviction helps calibrate the deeply skeptical view of
young black men in the eyes of Milwaukee
employers.
The growing importance of soft skills, ethnic
heterogeneity, and job seekers with criminal
records suggest the persistence or increasing
incidence of discrimination in contemporary
low-wage labor markets. Whether based on statistical generalizations or inaccurate stereotypes, preconceived notions about the
characteristics or desirability of black men relative to other applicant types are likely to structure the distribution of opportunity along racial
lines.
METHODS FOR STUDYING LABOR
MARKET DISCRIMINATION
Racial discrimination in the labor market is typically studied by comparing the wages of whites
and minorities, statistically controlling for
human capital characteristics. Estimates from a
variety of social surveys suggest that the blackwhite difference in hourly wages among men
usually range between about 10 and 20 percent
(Cancio, Evans, and Maume 1996; Darity and
Meyers 1998; Neal and Johnson 1996).
Although widely used, this residual method, in
which discrimination is defined as the unexplained race difference in wages, is sensitive to
the measurement of human capital. Where race
differences in human capital are incompletely
observed, the effect of discrimination may be
overestimated (Farkas and Vicknair 1996; Neal
and Johnson 1996).
Residual estimates of discrimination infer
employer behavior from data on workers’wages.
Field experiments, by contrast, offer a more
direct approach to the measurement of discrimination. This approach, also referred to as
an audit methodology, involves the use of
matched teams of job applicants—called
testers—who apply to real job openings and
record responses from employers. Testers are
assigned equivalent résumés and are matched on
a variety of characteristics like age, education,
physical appearance, and interpersonal skills.
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