Black names and racism in the hiring process

Black Names and Racism in the Hiring Process is about employers' racism against blacks in the hiring process, in particular, the racism based on black job applicant's names. This racism in corporate America threatens to deny qualified blacks the same opportunities as equally or less qualified whites. In this article, several economic studies done on this subject are covered, as are possible solutions currently being implemented to address racial inequalities in the job market.
History
Discrimination against blacks has been ingrained in American society since the days of slavery. Any indication of being black would, by law, result in a lower quality of life. According to historian Annette Gordon-Reed, blacks lived "in a world that valued whiteness--white's culture, hair, skin color, and facial features." Skin color was the primary factor in determining race, and thus the treatment, of an individual.
According to the Boston Globe, "African-Americans today, despite a half century of economic and social progress since the civil rights movement" still face discrimination based on their skin color.
Although measures have been instituted to prevent racial discrimination, indicators of blackness can and have been used since the days of slavery to discriminate based on race. A person's name is one such indicator, and has been used since the days of slavery to discriminate against people with names that are not traditionally white. The actions of President Thomas Jefferson's freed slave children are a prime example of the existence of name-based discrimination in the early nineteenth century. Although his slave children looked white, they adopted traditionally white names to avoid the discrimination imposed upon blacks during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. According to Gordon-Reed, one of Jefferson and Heming's children "changed his name from Eston Hemings to E.H. (Eston Hemings) Jefferson when he went into the white world". He did this considering his "professional life" as a musician, knowing that such a name would improve his opportunity for success in a world controlled by whites. The problem of name-based discrimination against blacks began early and remains an issue in our society today, most noticeably in the hiring process.
Misrepresentation in the Job Market
Studies have shown that people with black-sounding names tend to receive different results when applying for jobs than people with traditionally white sounding names. Such differential treatment may have a direct correlation to the substantially higher level of unemployment among blacks than whites. Several studies have been conducted to see how people perceive names and to test the theory of name-based discrimination. According to ABC News, a resume "that was supposed to separate you from everyone else is now at the same time hindering you.” Researchers have sent out identical resumes with name being the only differing factor. More often than not, the resume with the traditionally white sounding name would receive more callbacks than the resume with the black or minority sounding name.
Reducing the racial gap in the labor market may in fact have little to do with increasing of the credentials or training of the people looking for jobs. Additionally, many blacks have recognized that their increased training or higher credentials would do little to help their chances of employment. This is not only a problem in that it reduces the potential productivity of our market, but it is also a problem because the racism, whether accidental or not, is affecting an individual’s ability to obtain a job.
If employers believe that low economic status hinders an individual’s ability to be productive, and that black names signal lower socioeconomic status, then they may conjecture that black names signal low productivity. Thus, the probability of an individual with a black name getting called back for an interview is slim. This is problematic as racism has control over the allocation of jobs. There are many cases where black individuals have credentials that would allow them to be more productive than white individuals with white names that received call backs for the same job, however, more often than not, a black name hinders their opportunity to prove themselves.
Evidence
The Bureau of Labor Statistics data from 2004 shows that full-time employed white men earned a 28.6 percent higher median of weekly salaries than did black men and white women earned a 15.6 percent higher median than did black women. Taking “differences in education, experience, occupation and industry” into consideration, economists Joseph Altonji and Rebecca Blank showed that “the gap in hourly wages between blacks and whites who worked full-time for all of 1995 was still 7 percent.” The study found that such discrimination was present in a variety of job types and ones that required different levels of aptitude. “Cashiering and mail room attendants” as well as "more heavily skills-based positions such as regional sales managers and assistants to the president”. all faced this inequity.
Black unemployment is twice as likely as white unemployment and earnings are roughly twenty five percent less when blacks do get employed. Even those with college educations suffer “disproportionately in this jobless environment compared with whites.”
The evidence suggests that name-based discrimination causes many more blacks to be unemployed than whites, which contributes to continuing racial inequality.
Common White and Black Names in American Society
In his book, Freakonomics, Steven Levitt compiles lists of the most common birth names by gender and race. These lists provide some context for society's perception of what constitutes a "black name" versus a "white name". The following are the top twenty male and female names of each race. Bertrand and Mullainathan mailed 5,000 made-up résumés in response to help-wanted ads in the Boston Globe and the Chicago Tribune.
Their objective was to measure racial discrimination in the labor market. They assigned either an African American sounding name or a white sounding name to each resume in order to manipulate perception of race. The results of the experiment showed that white names received 50 percent more callbacks for interviews, an indication of significant racial discrimination in the labor market. The results of the experiment also showed that a higher quality resume for whites gets 30 percent more callbacks while on the contrary a higher quality resume for African Americans gets far fewer callbacks. Their results showed that racial discrimination was uniform and prominent across occupations and industries in the labor market.
Bertrand and Mullainathan responded to help-wanted ads for sales, administrative support, clerical and customer service jobs, and occupations in the labor market. They sent out four resumes—two high quality resumes and two low quality resumes—to each ad. They assigned African American sounding names to both a resume of high quality and a resume of low quality. They likewise assigned white sounding names to both resumes of high and low quality. Their results showed that 8.4 percent of employers contacted at least one more white applicant than black applicant, an indication of racial discrimination. Their results also showed that 3.5 percent of employers contacted at least one more black applicant than white applicant. Furthermore, their results showed that, of the resumes assigned white names, high quality resumes received 27 percent more calls than those of low quality and, of the resumes assigned black names, high quality resumes of received only eight percent more calls than those of low quality. Their results indicated differential treatment based on the name of the job applicant.
High quality resumes included significantly more labor market experience and stronger employment histories. Applicants of higher quality resumes were more likely to have email addresses, to have completed a degree, and to be able to speak a foreign language. Bertrand and Mullainathan mailed 5,000 resumes, responding to 1,300 employment ads. “Job applicants with white names needed to send about 10 resumes to get one callback; those with African-American names needed to send around 15 resumes to get one callback.” Their results showed as much racial discrimination in less skill-oriented jobs such as mail-room attendants and cashiering as in more skill-oriented jobs such as regional sales manager and assistant to the president.<ref name="imdiversity1"/>
An advantage of Bertrand and Mullainathan’s experiment was that it depended on made-up resumes to test discrimination. Their experiment did not depend on real people applying for jobs. They therefore did not harm anybody in performing their experiment to test the theory of name-based discrimination. Another advantage was that any differences in response to the applications were due to the race manipulation and not to other characteristics of a real person. Also, the experiment had a large sample size.<ref name="autogenerated2003"/> A weakness of the experiment was that it merely measured callbacks for interviews. It did not measure whether or not an applicant got the job. It also did not go into detail about what the wage for a successful applicant would be. Another weakness of the experiment was that it only used the Boston Globe and the Chicago Tribune and therefore had a limited channel for job search.<ref name="autogenerated2003"/>
Fryer and Levitt’s Experiment
Economists Roland Fryer and Steven Levitt conducted a similar study on the role of names in the labor market. They collected data on women who were born in California in 1973 or 1974 and who later gave birth by the year 2000. They compared information on the birth certificates of these women with information available about these women on the birth certificates of their children. Fryer and Levitt were therefore able to compare information on the socioeconomic status of these women at birth and the socioeconomic status of these women during adulthood. Their results did not indicate that having an African American sounding name leads to worse adulthood outcomes. However, Fryer and Levitt argued that an African American sounding name goes hand-in-hand with a worse socioeconomic background. They therefore argued that—based on their evidence—employers may be inferring different ability from job applicants with African American sounding names than from job applicants with white sounding names. Their results showed that African American sounding names served as an obstacle in the labor market.<ref name="stlouisfed1"/>
Fryer and Levitt measured how distinct an African American sounding name is by calculating a Black Name Index (BNI), which measures the percentage of babies with a given name who are black.<ref name="stlouisfed1"/>
Suggested Solutions
In the job market, hiring trends indicate that being black is a stigma. Employers' racism, although currently a pervasive problem, is not without its solutions. Some suggestions to effect reform of employers' habits include boycotting organizations with racist hiring practices and encouraging CEOs to implement diversity initiatives within their hiring departments.<ref name="imdiversity1"/> Federal affirmative action laws can provide quotas for diversity. But the treatment of race as an economic factor has not solved the problem.
The most realistic action for most black job-seekers to take is to work with the inherent injustice of the system and either only seek jobs at companies which value diversity or hide evidence of their race. Many black job-seekers choose the latter and redact from their resumes any sign of their black heritage or association with the black community. This alteration, referred to as "whitening the resume" consists of substituting black-sounding names with initials or whiter versions, omitting the names of historically black colleges, deleting any reference of activities associated with the black community, and reorganizing references so that the employer would contact a white person before a black person. Though this constitutes abandoning their heritage, many black Americans find this the most effective means of circumventing employers' racism.
:Sherrie De Leon, from Our News Now, reports on "Whitening the Resume":
::"During tight job markets many black applicants consider 'whitening' their resumes in order to increase employment opportunities. Some career advisers suggest taking out any race references including ethnic sounding names. Other counselors suggest staying true to yourself and seeking out companies that embrace diversity in the workplace." - Sherrie De Leon, Digital Journalist <ref name="nytimes1"/>
According to Sherrie De Leon, millions of African Americans lost jobs in 2008, and they are getting rehired at much slower rates than whites. Many blacks "think about altering or whitening their resumes to increase their odds." Eric Allan, "who has a common name, a master's degree and a resume that boasts years of experience as a facilities manager" still struggles in job interviews. According to Financial Services recruiter Michael Robinson, job applicants with resumes that reflect "more on the culture of their target company" are more likely to get callbacks than job applicants with resumes that reflect more on the individual. Robinson advises to "make the resume color neutral. Replace African sounding first names with initials, instead of listing historically black colleges, use only the majors and graduation years, and stick to basics: name, address, objective, and background." The job market favors whites, and "whitening" the resume will definitely increase one's chances of getting a job.<ref name="nytimes1"/>
The persisting problem of employer discrimination and the under-representation of black workers beckons for a functional solution. Although many suggestions have been presented, the issue has not subsided. Whether the lack of sufficient progress is due to the difficulty of implementing a sweeping change in policy or, as Mullainathan suggests, the employers' prejudice being subconscious,<ref name="imdiversity1"/> black people are still experiencing the effects of racism in our purportedly egalitarian society.

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