Catherwood LibraryILR School

In a recently released study on bias in hiring, researchers from the University of Chicago and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that among equally qualified job applicants submitting resumes in response to job openings, those with commonly white names are far more likely than those with commonly black names to receive callbacks. The researchers conducting the study used birth records for the current generation of thirty-somethings to build a database of typically white and typically black names, and used these names on fictitious job resumes submitted in response to 1,300 job openings advertised in the Boston Globe and the Chicago Tribune. Over 5,000 resumes were sent to the employers advertising the openings---one each of high-quality "black", low-quality "black", high-quality "white", and low-quality "white" resumes in response to each opening---who responded to ten percent of the "white" resumes, but to only just over 6.5 percent of the "black" resumes.