Australian study finds leadership job applicants with ethnic names receive far fewer call backs than those with English names

An Australian study by researchers working at the University of Melbourne and Monash Business School has confirmed that English-sounding names get more callbacks from job applications than ethnic names, with the report results finding that ethnic discrimination is particularly pronounced in the recruitment for leadership positions. 

The paper titled “Is there a glass ceiling for ethnic minorities to enter leadership positions? Evidence from a field experiment with over 12,000 job applications” was led by Dr Mladen Adamović from King’s College London – who worked on the report from 2017-20 at the University of Melbourne and at Monash from 2020-22) – with the support of Professor Andreas Leibbrandt from the Department of Economics at Monash Business School.

A field experiment saw more than 12,000 job applications sent to over 4000 job advertisements in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane during the two-year field research for the study to investigate hiring discrimination against six ethnic groups for leadership positions in 12 different occupations.

According to the study, the results show that despite identical resumes, ethnic minorities received 57.4% fewer callbacks than applicants with English names for leadership positions. For non-leadership positions, ethnic minorities received 45.3% fewer callbacks.

Three applications were sent in response to each job advertisement. Each included a resume of an applicant with an English name and the resumes of two applicants with non-English names. 

Six different ethnic groups were investigated by varying resumes with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, Arabic, Chinese, Indian, Greek, and English names. All candidates were born in Australia, worked in Australia, and went to an Australian school or university.

Professor Liebbrandt said it is the first-ever study that examines the issue amongst leadership, showing pronounced discrimination in the recruitment of leadership positions.

“This represents a new context as prior research has been mostly focused on discrimination in the recruitment of non-leadership positions,” he said.

“Their [hirers] decision-making could be also influenced by stereotypes and general leadership prototypes, so that they would prefer applicants with English names for leadership positions.

“This is consistent with Implicit Leadership Theory where recruiters focus on an ideal or typical leader that is likely to be successful in different contexts and refers to a general knowledge structure of typical leadership; if a leader’s characteristic matches a leadership prototype, a leader is evaluated as being a typical leader.

“While many organisations have successfully implemented diversity practices across the board they should also think about the context of leadership to increase the number of underrepresented groups in leadership positions,” concluded Professor Leibbrandt.

According to the study, when the advertised job required customer contact, ethnic discrimination for leadership positions was even more pronounced, but improved if the job emphasised the need for individualism or learning, creativity and innovation.

Writing for SmartCompany in April, report lead author Dr Mladen Adamović said the findings reveal a higher degree of ethnic discrimination during the recruitment process for leadership positions, providing new evidence of a glass ceiling for ethnic minorities in Australia.

“The ethnic discrimination findings are particularly striking because the resumes in our studies indicate that the ethnic minority applicants in our study were educated and have worked in Australia. This provides strong evidence that the reported hiring discrimination is caused by the name and not by visa issues or a lack of language skills or local experience,” he wrote. 

“To tackle the discrimination issue, organisations could try using anonymous job applications, in which the applicants’ names are hidden in the initial recruitment phase. 

“Further, it might be important to improve the training of recruiters to reduce ethnic discrimination in the recruitment of leadership positions. This could help recruiters become aware of potential stereotypes. Relatedly, organisations can implement diversity management and inclusion practices to support the recruitment and promotion of ethnic minority employees and leaders. 

“Finally, organisations can try to develop leadership development programs for ethnic minority employees.”

Note: this report has been updated to more correctly acknowledge the lead author of the study.