Race Bias in Hiring2017
No decline in racial hiring discrimination over 25 years -- 36% white callback advantage (PNAS)
A PNAS meta-analysis of 24 US field experiments (1989-2015) found no significant decline in anti-Black hiring discrimination over 25 years; white applicants receive on average 36% more callbacks than Black applicants with equivalent qualifications.
Primary source
Quillian, Pager, Hexel & Midtboen, PNAS 114(41)
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1706255114Published 2017 — compiled by JobCannon Research.
Why this stat matters
This figure belongs to the race bias in hiringvertical of JobCannon's ongoing review of hiring, AI, and career-outcome research. We track it because it is one of the few primary-source estimates with a published sample, methodology, or legal record. Cite the original source first; this page exists to make the figure easy to find and link to.
Related stats
- 9.5% Black callback gap; 20% of firms drive half of it (n=83K+)Kline, Rose & Walters, NBER WP 29053 — 2024
- Whitened resumes doubled Black-candidate callbacks (10% to 25%)Kang, DeCelles, Tilcsik & Jun, Administrative Science Quarterly — 2016
- White-sounding names +50% more callbacks vs Black-sounding names (AER 2004, n~5K)Bertrand & Mullainathan, American Economic Review 94(4) — 2004
- LLMs preferred white-associated names 85% vs 9% Black (n>3M)Wilson & Caliskan, AIES 2024 (NIST-funded) — 2024
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