Public Policy Working Group: Brigham Walker
Employment Discrimination against Indigenous People and the Labor Market Impact of Indian Reservations: Evidence from a Field Experiment
Graduate Student, Department of Economics
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About the Speaker
“Employment Discrimination against Indigenous People and the Labor Market Impact of Indian Reservations: Evidence from a Field Experiment”
Patrick Button and Brigham Walker
Abstract:
We seek to design a field experiment – a resume correspondence study – to study the discrimination in hiring faced by Indigenous people (American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians) in the United States. We will create realistic resumes of men and women of about age 30 applying for common entry-level jobs (retail sales, cook, wait-staff, janitor, security). We will send employers three resumes: one white, one Indigenous, and, in some cases, one of an American Indian who grew up on an Indian reservation rather than in an urban center (signaled by high school). This allows us to estimate the labor market penalty associated with Indian reservations, controlling for race. As we will be putting this experiment into the field in late November, we are seeking feedback on the methodology before we do so.
