Why Do Skilled Immigrants Struggle in the Labor Market? A Field Experiment with Thirteen Thousand Resumes

Original source

Philip Oreopoulos

Journal article · American Economic Journal: Economic Policy · 3(4), 148–171 · Version date: November 2011

Permission for School’s use is unestablished.

Used in these cards

Anglo First-Name Signaling Inefficiency

"The callback rate among Type 1 resumes with English first names and Chinese last names... is 12.5 percent, which is significantly different from the callback rate among those with first and last English names... but not significantly different from the callback rate among those with first and last Chinese names."

Anglo-Origin Experience Parity

"Interestingly, the resumes that list only British experience do not generate any significant fall in callback rates compared to Type 0 Canadian resumes (14.1 percent compared to 15.8 percent, as reported in column 5)."

"One direct policy recommendation that arises from concluding that implicit discrimination drives at least some of the results is that employers should consider masking names on applications before making initial interview decisions."

Coarse Categorization Bias

"Employers who are less accustomed to seeing foreign named or foreign educated applicants with adequate language skills are more likely to lump all foreign named and foreign educated applicants into one category even if there are other listed characteristics that offset the concerns about language skills."

Cohort Wage Gap Stagnation

"While the immigrant-native wage gap used to disappear (and sometimes even reversed sign) after 10 to 15 years for immigrants arriving prior to the 1970s, wages of immigrants arriving in the 1990s are still about 25 percent lower than wages of non-immigrants even after 2005 (Marc Frenette and René Morissette 2005)."

Credential Signal Inefficiency

"The addition of Canadian references for resumes with all or some foreign experience..., listing permanent residency status..., or attaching accreditation to a foreign degree has no significant impact on raising callback rates among Types 2, 3, or 4 resumes with foreign education and/or experience. The point estimates are all close to zero."

Employer Asymmetric Hire Risk Aversion

"Some recruiters also pointed out that they often face more pressure to avoid bad hires than they are awarded for exceptional ones. This leads to risk aversion and exacerbates the impact from even small signals of lower expected productivity."

English Female Callback Premium

"The callback rates for the Toronto and Montreal sample are estimated to be 4.9 percentage points higher for English named females compared to English named males. The premium arises for Type 0 resumes but not the other resume types."

Ethnic Name Hiring Discrimination

"Employer contact falls by 4.4 percentage points when switching from a Canadian resume with a common English name to one with a common Chinese, Indian, Pakistani, or even Greek name (15.7 percent to 11.3 percent, respectively)."

Foreign Experience Discount

"Among resumes with foreign names and foreign education, the callback rate climbs from 6.0 percent to 8.5 percent by listing just one previous job with a company located inside Canada rather than outside. Listing all job experience with companies located inside Canada leads to the callback rate increasing further to 11.0 percent."

Marginal Applicant Phone Screening Protocol

"If employers are interested in a candidate but concerned about the applicant's language skills, they could contact the applicant by telephone to determine whether an interview would be worthwhile... Another implication is to develop hiring policies that involve contacting marginal applicants to initially assess language abilities, when in doubt."

Multinational Firm Transferability Deficit

"The callback rates for Types 3 and 4 resumes listing experience with international companies (that could instead be used for resumes with Canadian experience) are 0.071 and 0.068, respectively. The callback rates for Types 3 and 4 resumes listing local foreign company names are 0.099 and 0.040, respectively."

Non-Visible Ethnic Surname Penalty

"Switching applicants' names from English to Greek origins generates lower callback rates by 4.0 percentage points. The callback rate gap between English and Greek names is about the same as it is between English and other ethnic names and significant at the 5 percent level."

Occupational Language Invariance

"Across a wide range of occupations ranging from computer programmer and web developer, in the lower decile categories of O*NET language and social skills, to receptionist and project manager in higher decile categories, the ratio in callback rates between resumes with English names and ethnic sounding names remains about the same and statistically significant."

Point System Selection Inefficiency

"Conditioning on highest degree completed, therefore, causes the relative wage gap between recent immigrants and non-immigrants to increase, from 36 percent lower wages for immigrants to 48 percent."

Third-Party Credential Accreditation Inefficacy

"The addition of Canadian references for resumes with all or some foreign experience... listing permanent residency status... or attaching accreditation to a foreign degree has no significant impact on raising callback rates among Types 2, 3, or 4 resumes with foreign education and/or experience."