Lecture: Stephen Benard, "Who Fits In? An Audit Study of Asian-Origin Applicants in Social and Technical Occupations"

Please join us on October 21 for a lecture from Associate Professor Stephen Benard, "Who Fits In? An Audit Study of Asian-Origin Applicants in Social and Technical Occupations".

Details

21 October, 16:00-17:30
Gadourek Hall (B0126), University of Groningen

Abstract

People of Asian origin occupy a unique place in the United States. Currently growing faster than any other racial or ethnic group, many Americans perceive Asians as a “model minority” due to their high average levels of educational attainment and income. Consistent with this unique position, Asians in the United States experience a distinctive mix of positive and negative stereotypes, which depict them as competent and technically skilled, but also lacking social and interpersonal skills. Given these mixed stereotypes, we ask whether Asian job applicants are disadvantaged relative to US-born White applicants to a greater degree in jobs requiring social skills, compared to those emphasizing technical skills. To answer this question, we report a preregistered field experiment in conducted in 11 US cities, in which we apply to job postings using fictional job applicants, including women and men of ostensibly foreign-born Chinese, US-born Chinese, or US-born White origin. We find, consistent with our hypotheses, that foreign-born Chinese-origin job candidates are called back significantly less often than White US-born job candidates, and that this difference is driven by occupations emphasizing social skills, and not those emphasizing technical skills. More surprisingly, from our theoretical perspective, is that these differences occur for men, but not women. Further, we find that callback rates for US-born Chinese men vary by whether their resumes mention English fluency: when they do, these applicants are called back at rates similar to US-born White men, and when they do not, they are called back at rates similar to foreign-born Chinese men. Our work speaks to debates about whether and to what extent Asians in the US have reached social and economic parity.

Bio

Stephen Benard is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology at Indiana University. His research focuses on intergroup relations and organizational behavior, particularly issues around status, conflict, identity, and inequality. He is the Director of Indiana University’s interdisciplinary Liberal Arts and Management Program (LAMP), and he previously served as the Director of the Karl Schuessler Institute for Social Research. His research has been supported by the US National Science Foundation, with recent work appearing in Social Forces, Social Psychology Quarterly, Advances in Group Processes, and RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences.