Written by Don Byrd
The EEOC has reported that claims for religious discrimination in the workplace are on the rise in recent years. Now, a study adds that discrimination may begin from the time a job application is submitted.
As part of the study, fake job applicants were created each indicating a different religious preference, with a control application of no religious preference indicated. The researchers then waited for email or phone contact.
The Hartford Courant describes the results from applications in the Northeast:
Those applicants for the New England jobs with any religious identification had 19 percent fewer contacts from potential employers than did the applicants from the non-religious control group.
Wallace said it was “not a total surprise” to see that the apparent bias against Muslim applicants was more marked than for any of the groups: Muslim applicants received 32 percent fewer emails and 48 percent fewer phone calls than applicants from the control group.
Most religious applications fared even worse in the South:
Applicants with a religious reference garnered 29 percent fewer emails and 33 percent fewer phone calls from Southern employers than did the control-group applicants. Muslim applicants got 38 percent fewer emails and 54 percent fewer phone calls than the applicants with no apparent religious ties.
Wallace said that Southern employers discriminated against atheist, pagan and the fictional Wallonians at a rate somewhat less than they did against Muslims, followed, by Catholics and then, Christian evangelicals.
You can read the Northeast study in the journal Research in Social Stratification and Mobility. The Southern study can be found in Social Currents.
