Immigrants’ recruitment chances in the German labor market: Evidence from large-scale survey experiments

Abstract

"Members of certain minority groups are disadvantaged in different areas of society, such as the labor and housing market and the healthcare system. This is referred to as discrimination if people are disadvantaged solely based on their group membership (e.g., ethnic background or religious affiliation), even though the objective matching criteria are equal, e.g., regarding qualifications. In this research report, we analyze the recruitment chances of immigrants and members of religious minorities using a vignette experiment. For this purpose, we recontacted around 10,000 firms that had already taken part in the large-scale and representative IAB Job-Vacancy-Survey 1.5 years ago. Consequently, the follow-up survey as part of our study was very brief, requiring little additional effort by firms, as extensive information on a wide range of relevant information was already collected from their previous participation. This may explain the high response rate to our experiment of almost 50 percent. The analyses in this report are based on the responses of 4,883 firms. Vignette experiments are particularly suited to causally study determinants of hiring prospects because by collecting employers’ assessment on sufficiently many vignettes (with randomized applicants’ characteristics), they provide a controlled setting to account for all relevant applicant characteristics. Even though vignettes describe fictitious situations, experiment results have been shown to provide high congruence with real decision-making. We provided firms with descriptions of fictitious job applicants, randomly varying, among other traits (such as job experience, language proficiency), origin countries (Syria, Turkey, Ukraine, Russia with “is German” as baseline) and religious affiliation (Christian and Muslim compared to a baseline without religious signal). Holding qualifications constant, on average, we do not find lower hiring probabilities for applicants born abroad compared to German applicants. However, our results provide strong evidence of anti-Muslim labor market discrimination in Germany. This effect is driven by applicants from predominantly Muslim countries (Syria and Turkey in our case), which confirms previous results in the literature according to which discrimination against Muslims originating from countries that are generally perceived as more authoritarian and gender unequal is stronger. This is alarming given that – unlike in our vignette experiment – people in Germany born abroad are much more often Muslim than German-born people (almost a quarter compared to less than 2 percent). Looking at further applicants’ characteristics, we find strong evidence in favor of the so-called ‘motherhood penalty’, according to which females are hired less frequently than males if they have children. Moreover, human capital can, at least partially, alleviate foreign applicants' hiring disadvantages: Applicants born abroad benefit from higher levels of German language skills and from professional experience – particularly if obtained in Germany. Regarding firm characteristics, small firms, firms operating in the primary and secondary sector, and firms that do not hire internationally discriminate more. Most relevant for policy, firms facing labor shortages only increase hiring chances for advantaged applicant groups (German applicants and males) but not for disadvantaged groups. These results suggest that firms in Germany do not consider recruiting from traditionally disadvantaged groups – even if equally qualified – as a way to overcome often lamented labor shortages. A list experiment conducted with firms in parallel cross-validates that a significant proportion of firms in Germany discriminate against refugees and Muslims. Taken together, our results provide multiple avenues for policy action." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

Cite article

Jaschke, P., Kosyakova, Y., Auer, D., Hunkler, C., Salikutluk, Z. & Sprengholz, M. (2025): Immigrants’ recruitment chances in the German labor market: Evidence from large-scale survey experiments. (IAB-Forschungsbericht 06/2025), Nürnberg, 36 p. DOI:10.48720/IAB.FB.2506