Do ethnic minorities have incentives to omit photographs from résumés? Experimental evidence from Germany and the Netherlands

Abstract

Ethnic minority job-seekers may have incentives to include or omit photographs from résumés depending on the social norms regarding this practice and the extent to which their outward appearances diverge from the majority group. To investigate minorities’ incentives to engage in a specific type of résumé whitening––omitting photographs to avoid discrimination based on phenotypical traits or religious attire––we draw on data from an audit field experiment conducted between 2016 and 2018 in the Netherlands and Germany. Our analysis highlights the challenges for anticipating discrimination (and, thus, deciding to engage in résumé whitening) since it is difficult to predict employers’ true preferences with respect to the inclusion of photographs. In the Netherlands, unveiled Turkish women were better off submitting their picture rather than omitting it, but the premium associated with the inclusion of photographs disappeared if they wore the Muslim headscarf. For unveiled Moroccan women, there was no discernible advantage or disadvantage associated with the inclusion of pictures in job applications. In contrast, in the German context, minority women with high prototypical appearance (brown phenotype or wearing the Muslim headscarf) would have incentives to omit their photographs from job applications, particularly if they wore the Muslim headscarf. For Moroccan and Turkish men in the two countries, the inclusion of pictures with different phenotypes does not affect employers’ responses. To conclude, we explore the advantages and disadvantages of blind recruitment policies (i.e. omitting all ethnic identifying cues from résumés, including photographs and names) in the European context.