Dan-Olof Rooth

Obesity, Attractiveness, and Differential Treatment in Hiring: A Field Experiment

This study presents evidence of differential treatment in the hiring of obese individuals in the Swedish labor market. Fictitious applications were sent to real job openings. The applications were sent in pairs, where one facial photo of an otherwise identical applicant was manipulated to show the individual as obese. Applications sent with the weight-manipulated photo had a significantly lower callback response for an interview: Six percentage points lower for men and eight percentage points lower for women. This differential treatment occurs differently for men and women: The results for men are driven by attractiveness, while the results for women are driven by obesity.

Do When and Where Matter? Initial Labor Market Conditions and Immigrant Earnings

This paper investigates the long-term effects on immigrant earnings and employment from labor market conditions encountered upon arrival. We find substantial effects both of the state of the national labor market and of local unemployment rates. Comparing refugees entering Sweden in a severe and unexpected recession to refugees arriving in a preceding economic boom, we attempt to handle the issue of selective migration. The analysis of effects at the local level exploits a governmental refugee settlement policy to get exogenous variation in local labor market conditions.

The Role of Automatic Obesity Stereotypes in Real Hiring Discrimination

This study examined whether automatic stereotypes captured by the implicit association test (IAT) can predict real hiring discrimination against the obese. In an unobtrusive field experiment, job applications were sent to a large number of real job vacancies. The applications were matched on credentials but differed with respect to the applicants weight. Discriminatory behavior was quantified by the extent to which the hiring managers invited normal-weight versus obese applicants to a job interview. Several months after the behavioral data were obtained, the hiring managers completed an obesity IAT and explicit hiring preference measures. Only the IAT scores reliably predicted interview decisions. More specifically, hiring managers holding more negative automatic stereotypes about the obese were less likely to invite an obese applicant for an interview. The present research is the first to show that automatic bias predicts labor market discrimination against obese individuals. Practical implications are discussed.

The Effect of Schooling on Cognitive Skills

To identify the causal effect of schooling on cognitive skills, we exploit conditionally random variation in the date Swedish males take a battery of cognitive tests in preparation for military service. We find an extra ten days of school instruction raises scores on crystallized intelligence tests (synonyms and technical comprehension tests) by approximately 1% of a standard deviation, whereas extra nonschool days have almost no effect. In contrast, test scores on fluid intelligence tests (spatial and logic tests) do not increase with additional days of schooling but do increase modestly with age.

Height and Earnings: The Role of Cognitive and Noncognitive Skills

We use large-scale register data on 450,000 Swedish males who underwent mandatory military enlistment at age 18, and a subsample of 150,000 siblings, to examine why tall people earn more. We show the importance of both cognitive and noncognitive skills, as well as family background and muscular strength for the height-earnings relationship. In addition, we show that a substantial height premium remains after these factors have been accounted for, which originates from very short people having low earnings. This is mostly explained by the sorting of short people into low-paid occupations, which may indicate discrimination by stature.

Adolescent health and adult labor market outcomes

Whereas a large literature has shown the importance of early life health for adult socioeconomic outcomes, there is little evidence on the importance of adolescent health. We contribute to the literature by studying the impact of adolescent health status on adult labor market outcomes using a unique and large-scale dataset covering almost the entire population of Swedish males. We show that most types of major conditions have long-run effects on future outcomes, and that the strongest effects result from mental conditions. Including sibling fixed effects or twin pair fixed effects reduces the magnitudes of the estimates, but they remain substantial.

The Ethnic Employment and Income Gap in Sweden: Is Skill or Labor Market Discrimination the Explanation?

This study uses a cognitive test score, the Swedish Military Enlistment test taken at age 18, to identify whether the ethnic employment and income gap in Sweden is caused by a pre-market skill gap and/or ethnic discrimination. The employment gap and income gap are estimated for males born in Sweden with different ethnic backgrounds: their parents were born in Sweden or in southern Europe or outside Europe. Controlling for the cognitive test score does not affect the ethnic employment gap, and for incomes the ethnic income gap almost disappears.

Adopted Children in the Labour Market — Discrimination or Unobserved Characteristics?

Detecting ethnic discrimination in the labour market using individual data is aggravated by individual ethnic-specific characteristics that are unobserved by the researcher. In an attempt to estimate the effect of skin colour on the probability of being employed (vs, unemployed), the labour market success of foreign-born adopted individuals is compared with that of natives. Specifically, the unexplained differences in the probability of being employed between natives and adoptees is investigated using Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition methodology. It is found that adoptees with dissimilar looks to natives fare worse in the labour market, measured as a lower probability of being employed, than natives, and that these differences can be attributed to an unexplained difference rather than a difference in characteristics observed by the researcher. Also, such large differences are not found for adoptees with a similar appearance to natives. Hence, we cannot exclude the possibility that skin colour discrimination exists in the labour market.

Revealing taste-based discrimination in hiring: a correspondence testing experiment with geographic variation

The standard Correspondence Testing Experiment (CTE) does not identify whether employer prejudice, as opposed to statistical discrimination, drives discriminatory behaviour when hiring. This article proposes a new methodology using geographic variation to explore the link between employer attitudes towards ethnic minorities and the ethnic difference in callbacks for a job interview. Using already existing Swedish data we find that a randomly selected employer is more likely to discriminate against a minority job applicant in regions where the average employer has more negative attitudes.

Warm and Competent Hassan = Cold and Incompetent Eric: A Harsh Equation of Real-Life Hiring Discrimination

In a field experiment, we sent out 5,636 job applications varying how Swedish (in-group) and Arab (out-group) applicants presented themselves in terms of two fundamental dimensions of social judgment: warmth and competence. Results indicate substantial discrimination where Arab applicants receive fewer invitations to job interviews. Conveying a warmer or more competent personality increases invitations. However, appearing both warm and competent seems to be especially important for Arab applicants. Arab applicants need to appear warmer and more competent than Swedish applicants to be invited equally often. The practical importance of signaling warmth and competence in labor market contexts is discussed.