Discrimination based on social class: Insights from field and survey data

Discrimination based on social class is challenging to study, and therefore likely to be underappreciated, due to its subtle nature. As social class is often difficult to gauge from traditional resumes, correspondence studies based on resumes may erroneously infer absence of class-based discrimination in the hiring process. 

Given that many individuals have a social media presence today, employers can increasingly rely on additional information gleaned from such online sources (e.g., Twitter, Instagram), which may influence hiring decisions. 

To study the role of social networking websites vis-à-vis potential discrimination based on social class, Diana leveraged:

1. An original online survey experiment 
2. A field experiment that both manipulate cultural markers of social class expressed on the social media platform Twitter. 

In addition to studying the effect of social class on hiring, the study also investigates potential channels that might explain class-based discrimination. 

In this event, Diana will explore her findings that reveal that while an individual’s online presence might not be part of the formal application process, it does seem to influence hiring decisions, specifically by shaping inferences about applicants’ employability, competence, and warmth.

This event will be particularly useful for those interested in social inequality and stratification, discrimination, education, gender, migration and experiments.

This is a hybrid event and you can attend either virtually or in-person.

Related links

• QSS seminar series
• Quantitative Social Science (QSS)
• Centre for Longitudinal Studies (CLS)
• Social Research Institute