SOEP Brown Bag Seminar

In this paper, we draw on two key models of stereotyping, the Stereotype Content Model (SCM) and the Agency-Beliefs-Communion (ABC) to study whether stereotypes associated to ethnic minorities predict discrimination in hiring in the German labor market. In study 1, we examined the content of the stereotypes that Germans ascribe to 38 ethnic minorities, drawing on a large-scale online survey (N=2,300). We instructed respondents to rate ethnic minorities with respect to different adjectives reflecting the warmth, competence/agency, and progressive beliefs dimensions of the SCM and ABC model. In study 2, we used the group-level ethnic stereotypes found in study 1 to predict differences in employer responses to job applications. We drew on a large-scale field experiment on hiring discrimination, a so-called correspondence test, conducted in Germany (N=2,700 employer responses). The ethnic background of the fictitious job candidates was randomly varied in this field experiment, which allowed us to investigate how well ethnic stereotypes can explain ethnic hierarchies in hiring and which stereotype content dimensions mattered the most in employers’ evaluations. Overall, our results suggest that stereotypes about beliefs play a crucial role in the assessment of ethnic origin groups. Stereotypical progressiveness is the best predictor for ethnic discrimination in real-world hiring decisions. Interestingly, progressive beliefs are also the strongest predictor of perceived similarity to the Germany host society. By contrast, competence/agency and warmth stereotypes fail to predict hiring discrimination.