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Choice‐Based Discrimination: Labor‐Force‐Type Discrimination Against Gay Men, the Obese, and Mothers
Author(s) -
KricheliKatz Tamar
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
journal of empirical legal studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.529
H-Index - 24
eISSN - 1740-1461
pISSN - 1740-1453
DOI - 10.1111/jels.12023
Subject(s) - salary , perception , psychology , social psychology , affect (linguistics) , controllability , competence (human resources) , argument (complex analysis) , economics , medicine , mathematics , communication , neuroscience , market economy
Do perceptions of controllability and choice affect the nature and magnitude of discrimination? Many groups of people, who hold seemingly controllable devalued traits, including gay men, the obese, and mothers, are discriminated against both in the labor force and in other areas of life. In this article, I show that perceptions of choice and controllability generate discrimination against individuals with seemingly controllable stigmatized traits. I use a hiring experiment in a highly controlled setting to assess this argument. The results provide strong evidence for a causal relationship between perceptions of choice and labor‐force‐type discrimination against gay men, obese men, and mothers. When the traits were presented as voluntary, gay men, obese men, and mothers were penalized when compared to their equally qualified counterparts in terms of hiring, salary recommendations, and competence evaluations.