from the majority culture, the health and welfare services need to develop a cultural sensitivity to be able to provide for accommodated services and assistance for indig- enous people. Interestingly, this study points to the distinction between direct and indirect discrimination, discussed in Chap. 2: In public services, treating different people as if they are similar may in practice be discriminatory. In the case of Norway, knowledge about the century-long history of structural domination of the Sámi minority is a precondition for providing adequate service and help to a population that lacks trust in the state apparatus.

These different studies show how individuals of various minority origins may experience subtle acts of discrimination in social domains characterized by systems of equality, such as schools and welfare services. The studies also demonstrate how minority individuals often interpret their experiences in light of broader structures of categorical inequality, such as being ascribed membership in Muslim or indige- nous groups in Europe. Importantly, these subtle forms of discrimination detected by qualitative researchers are not readily accessible by other methods. Of course, differences in access to education or health services are detectable by statistical data, and studies using the residual method often provide strong indicators that dif- ferential treatment in systems of equality do occur (e.g., Babyar 2018; Heath and Brinbaum 2014). Qualitative studies of people’s experiences, however, are neces- sary to explore the role discrimination plays out in micro-level processes in schools, health care, and public services. Moreover, experimental data is generally lacking in these domains, mainly because it is difficult to conduct field experiments of dis- crimination where intervention in a selection process is not an option. The result is that research on discrimination that occurs as part of everyday interaction in schools or in encounters between minority individuals and workers within the health and social services differs quite fundamentally from research on discrimination in social domains characterized by systems of differentiation, methodologically, theoreti- cally, and conceptually.

## 5.4 Implications

Research on discrimination in systems of differentiation tends to focus empirically on the extent to which discrimination occurs in selection processes, and theoreti- cally on whether discrimination is caused by individuals’ racial animus or statistical uncertainty. Research in the system of equality, on the other hand, tends to focus on more subtle processes of stigmatization and exclusion, and it more often engages with structural-level theories of inequality. Although there exist many exceptions to this rule, in general, these two strands of research can be clearly distinguished in terms of both empirical focus and the theoretical perspectives employed. The ques- tions are: Why is this the case – and does it matter?

The main explanation of why experimental approaches dominate research in sys- tems of differentiation while seldom are used in systems of equality is that the modus operandi differs between domains. In domains characterized by systems of
differentiation, selection processes regulate the access to goods and resources, and ultimately to power. In domains characterized by systems of equality, access to goods shall be provided to everyone who has a legitimate need for equal services. This basic distinction helps explaining why two distinct strands of discrimination research have developed, and why the dividing line between the strands not only goes between researchers' preferred choice of methods but also between the social domains in question.

Importantly, the distinction between the two different system logics has consequences for the conclusions reached by research. In systems of equality, the absence of differentiating processes in which a pool of individuals compete for scarce goods means that researchers often cannot assess the direct role of discrimination by using field experiments. As field experiments are considered the gold standard in discrimination research, this implies that research cannot provide “clear and convincing evidence” (cf., Fix and Struyk 1993) of discrimination in systems of equality. By implication, conclusions drawn by research in systems of equality are deemed “uncertain” because – as shown in Chap. 4 – other methods suffer from limitations when the task is to investigate the prevalence of discrimination.

The reverse problem exists in systems of differentiation. Because researchers do have access to selection processes it is a relatively easy task to detect discrimination by conducting field experiments, thereby assessing the extent to which discrimination takes place. However, although selection regulates access to social domains such as the labor market and the housing market, these social domains – and especially the labor market – also consist of a range of everyday encounters, for example between colleagues at the workplace. Of course, discrimination may take place in these encounters too and there exists a large literature on workplace bias (e.g., Bielby 2008; Brief 2008; Wrench 2007). Yet because these interactions are not readily available for experimental intervention, research on subtle acts of discrimination in the workplace is far less prevalent than research on discrimination in the access to the labor market.

Because different methods provide different information about the type of discrimination that occurs, it is difficult to compare the extent of discrimination across social domains. This point brings us back to Reskin's (2012) observation, namely that there is a lack of studies which investigate patterns of disadvantage across different areas of social life and how disadvantage may cumulate over time and space (see also Blank et al. 2004; and this book's Chaps. 2 and 3). One reason why such studies are so rare is the fact that while discrimination is easily detected in social domains characterized by systems of differentiation, it is harder to uncover the discrimination that de facto occurs in social domains characterized by systems of equality.
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Chapter 6

Consequences of and Responses
to Discrimination

After having discussed the main conceptual and methodological tools for analysis and described the forms and extent of discrimination, this chapter turns to the impact of discrimination – for economy and society, but mainly focusing on the consequences of discrimination for the targeted individuals and groups. The chapter also addresses responses to experiences of exclusion and disadvantage by reviewing recent research of how awareness of the repercussions of unfair treatment lead both individuals and groups to protect themselves and seek strategies for overcoming future barriers.

6.1 Costs of Discrimination

What is the economic costs of discrimination in the labor market? Taste-based dis-
crimination – employers’ willingness to hire a less productive employee because of
ethnic or racial bias – provokes a suboptimal allocation of resources and leaves
unexploited potentially valuable human resources. Theoretically, in competitive
markets, such inefficient practices are likely to lower productivity and increase the
risk of economic failure (Becker 1957). Because discrimination is difficult to mea-
sure directly (see Chap. 4) few empirical studies have tested this important assump-
tion, however. A notable exception is a recent study by Pager (2016), which takes as
its starting point a field experiment of discrimination in New York City, conducted
in 2004. The field experiment recorded discriminatory recruitment in 24% of the
tested enterprises. By matching the tested enterprises with business register data in
2010, Pager examined whether business survival during the troubled economic cri-
sis of 2008 differed according to recruitment practices. The study shows that busi-
ness failure concerned 17% of non-discriminatory firms and 36% of discriminatory
companies. The findings clearly support the theoretical assumption of an associa-
tion between discrimination and firm survival, as the “likelihood of going out of
business for an employer who discriminated appears more than twice that of its non-discriminating counterpart" (Pager 2016: 852).

Some efforts have also been made to assess what society would gain from a reduction in discrimination. A recent French study (Bon-Maury et al. 2016), for example, aims at assessing the economic gains of eliminating discrimination in employment. The study first demonstrates considerable residual gaps in employment between men and women and French-born individuals with and without a migration background, after controlling for all available productivity-relevant factors. By simulating the effects of bringing the employment situation of discriminated persons in line with the average situation observed in the rest of the population of the same age group, the authors are able to estimate the economic gains expected from a reduction in discrimination. The study shows that a convergence in employment rates would increase the employed working population by 3% and the GDP by 3.6%.

Discriminatory practices and decisions have not only negative implications for businesses or the economy. Discrimination impacts the whole society as it may foster social exclusion by restricting full participation in the educational, economic, political, and social institutions of society. It may undermine confidence in the meritocratic system of distribution of rewards for school and professional achievement. It may jeopardize the job search process and may provoke withdrawal from the labor market which results in poverty and causes social costs due to payment of benefits. The gap between the lived reality and the expectations of equal participation may nourish frustrations and erode identification with the country and its social system. Urban residential segregation due to ethnic discrimination may further undercut minority integration. Consequently, discrimination may reinforce social inequalities in society and sharpen group cleavages and intergroup conflict, thus threatening social cohesion.

## 6.2 Minorities’ Life Chances Reduced

Considering targeted individuals and groups, the literature on the consequences of discrimination builds on studies of experiences (see Chap. 4), which necessarily comprise different forms of unfair treatment, notably discrimination and stigmatization. Lamont et al. (2016) differentiate *discrimination* (i.e., being deprived of resources) from *stigmatization*, which refers to the experience of being disrespected, ignored, assigned a low status, or racialized. While discrimination is closely associated with stigmatization, the latter is often experienced without discrimination: incidents of stigmatization are more frequent than incidents of discrimination.

Discrimination effectively reduces a person's life chances across many domains, as aptly pointed out by Goffman (1963). It generally translates into lower attainment and unfavorable positioning for minority group members compared to the majority group. A few examples will suffice here to illustrate this point by giving a sense of
the affected outcomes in education, employment, housing, life satisfaction, and health.

Discrimination in the educational field can be analyzed as the practice of individual actors. Examining the impact of teachers’ expectations, Sprietsma (2013) asked primary school teachers to grade essays that had been randomly assigned to Turkish and German named pupils. The experiment reveals an ethnic bias in evaluation: the quality of the essays assigned to a Turkish name received a small yet significant 12 lower grade. The assessment of the perceived lower quality of the texts is also reflected in the teacher’s secondary school recommendation for the pupil. The study thus uncovers the mechanism of the self-fulfilling prophecy, well-known as the Pygmalion effect (Rosenthal and Jacobson 1968) or its opposite, the Golem effect, which is more pertinent for the case in point.

In this social domain emblematic for “systems of equality” (see Chap. 5), alternative approaches stress the role of institutional structures and practices in generating and reproducing ethnic inequality. Gomolla and Radkte (2009) empirically backed their argument for institutional discrimination (see Chap. 3) on their study of delayed school entry for children of immigrants in comparison to children of native-born parents. Tuppat and Becker (2014) revisit these early educational disadvantages for children of immigrants, diagnosed as not ready for school. The authors compare the impact of conventional and reformed school entry procedures on delayed school entry for all children and for Turkish-origin children in a German region. The reformed method lowers the overall proportion of delayed school entry recommendation; the percentage for Turkish-origin children, although still significantly differing from majority children, reduces from 10.2 to 5.8. The authors thus demonstrate how institutional contexts shape ethnic educational inequalities already at school start.

In a somewhat similar vein, Borgna and Contini (2014) provide the most encompassing assessment of the importance of general institutional arrangements in producing social and ethnic inequalities in education. Based on the 2006–2009 waves of the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) survey, they estimate migrant-specific penalties in educational achievement across Western European countries: “In ten countries, the average second-generation migrant child lies below the 35th percentile of the distribution of natives with the same socioeconomic resources” (Borgna and Contini 2014, 677). Cross-country migrant-specific educational achievement penalties are not explained by compositional characteristics. Late school entry and high marginalization in low-quality sectors of secondary school systems are singled out as the institutional features determining migrant-specific inequalities, distinct from those affecting class-driven educational disadvantage.

As for unemployment, the French Trajectories and Origins study shows that being a descendant of Maghrebi parents increases by six points the probability of being unemployed and decreases by five points the probability of being in full-time employment in comparison to the majority population, all other things (educational level, age, and health) being equal (Meurs 2018). To investigate the relation between perceived and actual discrimination, the author first calculates an individual
indicator measuring the difference between each respondent’ expected position
given his personal characteristics and his actual position, providing an objective
measure of the gap. By relating this indicator to perceived discrimination, she shows
that what people say about their experiences of discrimination in access to employ-
ment corresponds to the “objective” measure of the injustice of their current
situation.

An investigation of the rental housing market in the Flemish region reports that in almost 20% of the cases, ethnic minority members were discriminated against by not being invited to visit the property. Moreover, access to cheaper properties appear more affected by discrimination, a fact that increases housing costs for ethnic minorities at the bottom of the rental housing market (Van der Bracht et al. 2015, 172). Similarly, a Swiss study finds evidence of ethnic discrimination concerning people with Kosovar or Turkish names applying for viewing a housing accommodation: they have 3 and 5% lower response rates, respectively, than majority applicants. Whether those interested with foreign-sounding names were foreign permanent residents or Swiss citizens made hardly a difference (Auer et al. 2019).

Research has also enlarged its focus on other spheres impacted by discrimination and stigmatization. Safi’s study of an encompassing dimension like life satisfaction among immigrant-origin populations in Europe starts by observing their significantly lower life satisfaction in comparison to natives (Safi 2010). Moreover, relative dissatisfaction does not diminish across time and generations; despite an average higher level of educational attainment of the younger group, the latter are more likely than their parents to consider their situation as unfair.

A vast literature analyses the relationship between discrimination and health outcomes. Discrimination is a chronic and multidimensional stressor producing harmful effects on various aspects of health: psychological and physical, as well as on health-related behavior among minority groups. Numerous studies document the adverse impact of discrimination, both in its everyday or in its acute forms, on health. Perceived discrimination is a risk factor (e.g., for cardiovascular disease) among African American men as well as for breast cancer young black women in the US (DeLilly and Flaskerud 2012). Risk factors linked to perceived racial discrimination affect health even after controlling for socioeconomic status (Williams and Mohammed 2009). Recent meta-analyses (Carter et al. 2017; Paradies et al. 2015; Pascoe and Smart Richman 2009) indicate that exposure to discrimination seems to have a stronger effect for mental health compared with physical health: it generates depression and anxiety as responses to severe stress among stigmatized, racial, and immigrant groups. Greater racial discrimination is associated with greater psychological distress. Racial discrimination has also a negative impact on cultural variables such as collective self-esteem and identity, compromising individuals’ sense of self and group-based identity. Men are more affected by racial discrimination than women are (Carter et al. 2017).

In Europe, this new strand of research investigating the impact of discrimination on health is best established in the UK. To determine the causal link between the two variables, Johnston and Lordan's (2012), for example, study the health records of Pakistanis and Bangladeshis before and after the September 11th, 2001 attacks,
which caused a sharp increase of anti-Muslim discrimination in the UK. The health
indicators of these groups are compared to the ones of the control group, non-
Muslim Indians. Analyzing changes in health indicators between 1999 and 2004,
the authors evaluate the worsening of the general health of Muslim Pakistanis and
Bangladeshis relative to the general health of the control group, concluding that “he
probability of bad or very bad health increased by 3.0 percentage points, and the
probability of poor health limiting normal activities increased by 5.2 percentage
points.” (2012, 15). Johnston and Lordan further assess that discrimination exerts an
indirect detrimental impact on health, by negatively affecting notably employment
and perceived social support and by reducing health-related behaviors.

Moreover, perceived discrimination is negatively associated with health care ser-
vice utilization, concludes another meta-analysis (Ben et al. 2017). Those who
experienced discrimination have 2 or 3 times higher probability of reporting lower
trust in healthcare systems, lower level of satisfaction with health services and lower
quality of communication with healthcare professionals. Experiences of discrimina-
tion also increase the risks of delayed care and of non-compliance with the recom-
mended treatment.

Most studies analyze the relation between perceived interpersonal discrimination and health while there is a lack of studies exploring the link between structural discrimination and health inequalities (Krieger 2014). Yet recent research (Paradies et al. 2015) investigates the impact of cumulative discrimination and institutional racism (see Chap. 3) on health outcomes by taking into consideration the larger environment in the belief that health equity is influenced by the place where people live and work. Sociological research emphasizes residential segregation as the key institutional mechanism and fundamental cause of health disparities (Massey 2004). The neighborhood is a critical factor mediating access to social, economic, and human capital, reflected in the strong association between segregation and poverty (Wilson 1987). The theoretical explanation of the link between segregation and detrimental outcomes in educational achievement, employment, incarceration, and welfare dependency rests on social mechanisms like peer influences, cultural diffusion, role models, and access to networks. This literature thus echoes the environmental explanation of health disparities advanced at the end of the nineteenth century by W. E. B. Du Bois (1899).

6.3 Responses to Discrimination and Stigmatization

Discrimination and stigmatization affect the life chances of the targeted persons and
groups and are a source of stress affecting their well-being. Yet individuals and
groups that are victims of discrimination react by elaborating response strategies.
The step from discriminatory experiences and response strategies is filtered by the
way those experiences are lived and unraveled. Perception is driven by the actual
existence of inequality: those who are disadvantaged are usually likely to feel dis-
crimination. For instance, visible minorities who experience greater disadvantages
also perceive more discrimination than their majority counterparts do (Andriessen et al. 2014). Yet appraisal is a matter of interpretation attributing (e.g., a negative outcome in the labor market) to lack of personal skills or ascribing it to the targeted group's prejudice and unfair treatment. Individual differences impinge upon the perception of discrimination. Therefore, long-term immigrants in Canada are more likely to perceive discrimination than new immigrants (Banerjee 2008). Similarly, as children of immigrants have larger opportunities of establishing equal contact with majority members than first-generation immigrants, they may perceive less discrimination (André and Dronkers 2017). However, better-educated children of immigrants tend to have an enhanced awareness of discrimination in comparison to the previous migrant generation (Borrell et al. 2015), because of higher expectations for fair treatment. International evidence assesses “that more discrimination is found in the lower segments of the labor market” (Andriessen et al. 2012, 256; Carlsson 2010) so that higher educated minority members appear less exposed to discrimination than lower educated ones. Nevertheless, perceived discrimination seem to be higher among better-educated immigrant minority members (Diehl and Liebau 2017; De Vroome et al. 2014): this “paradox of integration” is partially explained by a heightened sense of relative deprivation; that is, the feeling of being illegitimately disadvantaged in comparison to majority members (Steinmann 2018). Moreover, ethnic identification is positively associated with perceived racial discrimination (Sellers and Shelton 2003; Verkuyten 2005).

Many studies assess that respondents perceive a higher level of discrimination directed at their in-group than at themselves as members of that group. This discrepancy may be due to the difficulty of detecting discrimination as the source of personal disadvantage in individual cases, in comparison to reliance on public measures of discrimination at the group level. On the other hand, exaggerating discrimination at the group level can be used as a claim argument for promoting the improvement of the minority group.

Furthermore, perception of discrimination is driven by targeted people's awareness of their rights and their sensitivity to unfair treatment, therefore it depends also on the prevailing social norms in a certain place and point in time. The establishment of equality norms increases the perception of discrimination: a treatment that used to be accepted as normal may be (re)qualified as unfair and become untenable. In a recent meta-analysis of US studies on the impact of workplace discrimination, Triana et al. (2015) find that the well-documented negative relation between perceived ethnic discrimination and job attitudes (e.g., withdrawals, efforts, etc.) was stronger after the adoption of the Civil Rights Act of 1991, reflecting a keen demand for fair treatment and implementing a stronger commitment to equality.

Perceiving discrimination, individuals and groups react to it in order to maintain self-esteem, a sense of control over the world around them and to seek ways out of the deadlock. They can act on the present, weigh up the alternatives in order to achieve the desired outcomes and project themselves into the future (Bandura 2001, 2006). The range of reactions and responses may differ in many regards, according to the actor's level, to the perception of the stressing factor, to the types of action
and/or reflection, to the aim pursued by the response, as well as to the socio-
historical and cultural context.

**6.3.1 Coping and Identity Strategies**

Individual-level responses to interpersonal forms of discrimination and stigmatization may be subsumed under the general concept of coping. Coping is stress-buffering answers aiming at reducing the effects of discrimination and stigmatization (Brondolo et al. 2009), notably on mental and physical health. Murray and Ali (2017) provide examples of such responses in a qualitative study on how senior professional Muslim women in the UK and Australia live, adapt, and react to discrimination in the workplace. They find two kinds of responses: the first type aims at modifying the source of stress and seeking social support (problem-focused coping) while the second one aims at reducing the distress associated with stigmatization (emotion-focused coping; see also Folkman and Lazarus 1984). Responses tend to vary according to the way the stress is perceived: when individuals see the situation as a challenge, they tend to resort to active problem-solving responses, like discussing concerns openly or referring to a supervisor. When they perceive the stress as a threat, they seek protection in emotion-focused responses, like learning to accommodate the values of their host society or looking for comfort in religion by seeking God's help. Actions take place largely on an individual level, while support from groups is sought in situations deemed threatening. Testing the buffering effects of coping responses among black women, Krieger (1990) finds that those who take a problem-solving approach are less likely to have a hypertension diagnosis than those who take an emotion-focused coping response.

A large body of literature focuses on the impact of discrimination and stigmati-
zation on social identity. Since people have the general desire to establish a positive
social identity, a disadvantaged in-group targeted by discrimination results in a
negative social identity (Tajfel and Turner 1979). To pursue status improvement
despite this unsatisfactory situation, minority members anticipating discrimination
may respond individually or as a group. The choice among strategies rests on an
evaluation of their feasibility. If group boundaries are deemed permeable, then
members of minority groups will attempt to enhance their identity by “walking out”
of their in-group and by identifying with and joining the majority group. Indeed,
Hirschman (1970) names this strategy “exit,” when applying it at a macro systemic
level of analysis. Moreover, assimilation can be considered as a strategy to enhance
individual position (Berry 1984).

Studies on labor market discrimination pinpoint minority job seekers’ strategies to enhance individual chances to gain access to the workplace. In Sweden, taking advantage of institutionally provided support facilitating such response, minority job seekers adopt a Swedish-sounding name in public, while retaining their ethnic name and identity in the private sphere (Bursell 2012). Similarly, according to Kang et al. (2016), African and Asian-American students often “whitewash” their
résumés by concealing their origin when applying for work. In order to be seen as a member of the dominant group, they present themselves omitting their minority-sounding first name or using an additional majority-sounding name or spending their middle name. Another way of whitening job applications is limiting information on aspects of one's curriculum that might be the basis for stigmatization. Applicants will then omit some engagements or modify the account of their involvement in ethnic experiences or mention "white" activities to show an assimilated profile. Concealing and downplaying their stigmatized identity strongly remind of Goffman's strategies of "passing" and "covering" for the management of stigmatized identities (Goffman 1963). Whitening a résumé proves an effective strategy: it generally enhances callbacks in comparison to unwhitened applications and nearly doubles the callback rate for Asian applicants in Kang et al.'s (2016) correspondence test. Such individual mobility strategy allows successful members of a minority group who pursue their career while the status relations between majority and minority remain unchanged.

Sonia Kang et al.'s study "Whitened Résumés: Race and Self-Presentation in the Labor Market", published in *Administrative Science Quarterly* in 2016, is a prime example of how racialized minorities may act when anticipating discrimination. It is also an innovative study, methodologically speaking: Combining qualitative interviews, a laboratory experiment and a field experiment, the authors examine racial minorities' attempts to avoid discrimination in labor markets by concealing or downplaying racial cues in job applications, a practice they refer to as "résumé whitening." Besides documenting that résumé whitening is a widespread practice which increases the possibilities of receiving call-backs for job interviews, the study shows that minorities are less inclined to "whitewash" their CVs when confronted with employers that present themselves as pro-diversity. However, the field experiment suggests that organizational diversity statements are not associated with reduced discrimination against unwhitened, leading to the paradoxical conclusion that minorities may be particularly likely to experience disadvantage when they apply to allegedly pro-diversity employers.

In contrast, if barriers between groups are perceived as insurmountable, individual strategies prove impracticable. Persons targeted by stigmatization and discrimination may, therefore, resort to collective responses: in an attempt to improve their position, they might seek to modify the relations between majority and minority. Collective responses build on the recognition of one's membership in the group and on a compelling identification to the in-group. Increased identification with the in-group aims at protecting psychological well-being (Branscombe et al. 1999). Having a strong relation to one's ethnic group identity may moderate the stress of discrimination by preventing negative stereotypes from affecting the self-concept. This rejection-identification model is corroborated by numerous empirical studies
(Schmitt et al. 2014). In research among young Turkish-Dutch and Dutch persons of similar educational backgrounds in the Netherlands, Verkuyten (2008), for example, observes that the higher the perceived discrimination among Turkish-Dutch, the stronger their Turkish group identification. In turn, this enhances their psychological well-being, partly restoring the damage inflicted by the discrimination.

Moreover, when the disadvantaged position is deemed illegitimate, it may give rise to a feeling of injustice and dissatisfaction. Collective mobilization is mostly based on relative deprivation, that is, the subjective perception of disadvantage and its illegitimate character rather than on the objective circumstances (Walker and Smith 2002). Collective mobilization is more likely to occur when a window of opportunity arises. The 1983 French March for Equality and Against Racism is an example in this regard. The March from Marseille to Paris, often known as “Marche des Beurs,” was a reaction against stigmatization and racial inequalities faced by children of Maghrebi immigrants, after the 1981 election of the first socialist president, François Mitterrand, which had stirred high expectations. French second-generation individuals mobilized as an actor in a social movement calling for equal rights based on the recognition of their French citizenship. This movement’s attempt to modify their unsatisfactory situation illustrates the “voice” option, among the famous triad of strategies outlined by Hirschman (1970).

## 6.3.2 Reactive Ethnicity

In the sociology of integration literature, the link between disadvantaged positions and ethnic group identification is often understood as an expression of the immigrant population's alleged limited willingness to integrate (Heath 2014), raising anxiety among majority group members. This common assumption in public debates disregards the well-established relation between perceived discrimination and a response strategy of stigmatized groups to protect their well-being, known in the literature on second-generation incorporation as “reactive ethnicity.” When confronted with a hostile reception environment, children of immigrants develop a defensive identity reactivating their origin, in order to reinforce the collective worth of their in-group (Portes and Rumbaut 2001).

Qualitative studies deliver penetrating insights into the logics of such identification reactions. Mey and Rorato (2010), for example, interviewed children of immigrants in Switzerland before and after their transition from compulsory school to vocational training. They document how those youngsters who repeatedly fail in their efforts to find an apprenticeship increasingly develop a strong identification with their origin group. Çelik's (2015) previously cited study among Turkish school dropouts in their vocational preparation program in Germany points in a similar direction. Observing their teachers' differential treatment of pupils, Çelik shows that the students in his study develop a deep sense of discrimination targeting especially groups singularized along ethnic and religious boundaries, like Turks, Kurds,
and Arabs in contrast with other immigrants of Christian background (see Chap. 5). Far from displaying a hyphenated identity, the informants exhibit a strong commitment to their Turkish identity as a response to their experience of discrimination and their perception of blocked social mobility. Çelik argues that when perceived discrimination is linked to stigmatization (i.e., rejection of the minority culture by the majority group), reactive ethnicity turns into the adoption of an oppositional identity (see also Ogbu 1991). Minorities refuse symbols and behaviors of the majority, discredited as a form of “acting white” and develop an “alternative cultural frame of reference” (i.e., different antithetical values to the dominant culture).

### 6.3.3 Socio-Cultural Embedding of Minority Responses

While in most studies, analyses are confined to one single national context, the comparative and multilevel research by Lamont and her colleagues (2016) allows for an exploration of the variability of subjective interpretations and the responses to perceived stigmatization in relation to the historical and social context. The authors analyze how middle- and working-class African Americans in the US, black Brazilians in Brazil, and Arab Palestinians in Israel interpret the discrimination and stigmatization they experience. They develop a five-category classification of narratives of incidents as well as of actual and normative responses. The most frequent responses are confronting the stigmatizer (i.e., challenging the perpetrator); managing the self (i.e., weighing the personal costs of responding) and not responding (i.e., regularly avoiding responding). Less common responses are focusing on hard work and competency (i.e. acquiring credentials and credit) and engaging in the group's isolation.

Lamont et al.'s (2016) comparative analysis reveals interesting cross-country differences. While African Americans predominantly react on discrimination by confrontation, black Brazilians hesitate between confronting, managing the self, and non-responding. Arab Palestinians, by contrast, opt most often for ignoring their experiences and retreating in isolation. The authors explain those cross-country variations by referring to the cultural repertoires available in each specific national context. Such repertoires are “cultural frames they [minorities] mobilize to make sense of their experience and to determine how to respond” (Lamont and Mizrachi 2012, 365). The ways minorities live and interpret their situations in each country are shaped by the historical place of the group in the country (past slavery and today's racism in American society, the myth of racial democracy in Brazil, and the Zionist national ideology in Israel), by institutional dimensions (e.g., the legal culture built on the Civil Rights Acts in the US and the legal and spatial segregation in Israel) and finally by the strength of a perceived minority group identity. Those features represent enabling and constraining forces that shape the actions of individuals and groups when addressing stigmatization.
## 6.4 Conclusion

Discrimination and stigmatization are costly for the society by lowering economic growth, by reinforcing ethnic inequalities, by fueling political conflicts and by jeop-ardizing social cohesion. Moreover, victims of unfair treatment pay a high price as discrimination and stigmatization reproduce the privilege of the majority, perpetu-ate their own disadvantaged status by eroding their life's chances in many social domains. Far from being passive victims, however, many members of minority groups develop and deploy individual and collective strategies to meet such chal-lenges. Responses vary according to their perception of the discrimination, the resources they can activate in their struggle, their evaluation of the chance to change their inequitable condition, and the rhetorical and strategic tools they can mobilize.

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<figure><img src="image_16.png" /></figure>
Chapter 7

# Combatting Discrimination

<figure><img src="image_17.png" /></figure>

Check for
updates

There is a large variety of policies and actions contributing to tackling discrimina-
tion against immigrants and ethno-racial minorities. These policies can be distrib-
uted along a gradient from formal equality to proactive policies that could include
preferential treatment for disadvantaged groups. Antidiscrimination laws and poli-
cies aim to prevent negative and unjustified distinction, exclusion, restriction, or
preference based on grounds such as nationality, race, color, sex, language, religion,
political opinion, etc. The list of grounds varies across countries: the French law, for
example, identify no less than 25 criteria of discrimination, the law in countries
such as Denmark or the UK operates with eight criteria, while the German General
Equal Treatment Act (2006, amended 2013) mentions only six grounds. A large
number of countries have chosen an open-ended list to avoid restricting the scope of
discrimination.

Antidiscrimination laws and policies aim to ensure equal rights for the protected
groups (e.g., women, people with disabilities, or ethnic and racial minorities). The
main goal of these legal provisions, policies, and actions is to achieve equality for
all in concrete terms and not only in principle. According to De Witte (2010), the
common principle of equality is “broad and empty” and should be specified to
become substantive. Fredman assigns four objectives to such substantive equality
policies: “to redress disadvantage; to address stigma, stereotyping, prejudice and
violence; to enhance voice and participation; and to accommodate difference and
achieve structural change” (Fredman 2016, 713). However, while the principles and
objectives of equal rights, equal treatment, and equal access to resources, goods,
and services receive generally large support among policy makers and public opin-
ion, concrete positive actions tend to be more divisive. This is especially the case of
positive discrimination, which provides preferential treatment – an advantage – to
members of protected groups to redress the penalties they historically have faced
(and often still face), in access to higher education, political mandate, public jobs,
or social housing.

Importantly, countries vary greatly in their strategies to tackle ethnic and racial discrimination. First, they can be divided into two groups: those who have adopted
ethnic and race-based policies, or ethnic and/or racial conscious policies, and those who favor color-blind policies, meaning that they address ethno-racial discrimination without identifying explicitly categories of victims based on ethnicity and race (see Chap. 1). Second, they diverge in the kind of measures they implement in the name of antidiscrimination policies. There are three main groups of measures – antidiscrimination legislation, affirmative action and other equal opportunity policies, and tools for promoting diversity. The chapter discusses these different measures in turn, before turning to studies that have aimed at assessing the effectiveness of measures to combat discrimination.

## 7.1 Antidiscrimination Legislation

Following the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a series of international treaties and conventions promoted by the United Nations have set international norms for equality: The International Human Rights Charter, the International Covenant on Economic and Social Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Principles of equality have further been detailed in thematic conventions, some of which specifically focus on racial discrimination. The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination adopted in 1965 and the Convention 111 of the International Labour Organization on discrimination (employment and occupation) adopted in 1958 are the main references in this area.

In Europe, the Racial Equality Directive (RED) enacted in 2000 constitutes the main legal framework on ethnic and racial discrimination. It implements the principle of equal treatment between persons irrespective of racial or ethnic origin and complements the European directives on discrimination in employment (which covers several grounds) and other directives dealing specifically with gender, age, disability, religion, or sexual orientation. The RED came relatively late after the pioneering antidiscrimination law implemented by the UK in 1976, which served as a reference for the European Commission. Similar legislation can be found in immigration countries at much earlier dates – such as Australia's Racial Discrimination Act of 1975, the Canadian Human Rights Act of 1977, and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act in the US enacted in 1964 (Simon 2005).

Each antidiscrimination law provides for the creation of agencies responsible for monitoring its application and for implementing its programs. At the inception of the process, agencies tend to be specialized on a specific ground (gender, race and ethnicity, disability), but the recent trend is to merge these together into a single body. For example, the British Commission for Racial Equality, the Equal Opportunity Commission, and the Disability Rights Commission were grouped together in the Equality and Human Rights Commission, established by the Equality Act of 2006. The creation of an independent equality body is a requirement spelled out in the RED, and all EU member countries have more or less complied with this. In addition to the national equality bodies, the European Commission established
the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) in 2007, as well as a network of
equality bodies, called EQUINET, created in 2002–2004. However, even in the
common framework provided by the EU directives, antidiscrimination actions vary
greatly among EU countries. The prerogatives of these agencies in combatting dis-
crimination can be far-reaching, ranging from the awareness raising of public
authorities and civil society to the coordination of equality policies. They are
responsible for all complaint-handling activities and may conduct legal actions and
investigations.

Antidiscrimination laws can be enforced in civil, administrative, or criminal courts. There are important differences in these legal tracks in terms of plaintiffs, procedures, and sanctions or sentencing. However, enforcement of the law can take non-judicial procedures aside from these judicial proceedings: negotiation or mediation can be actively promoted by equality bodies that are not judicial entities. In addition, labor inspectorates are often charged to enforce the employment law and its provision on discrimination.

The legal context itself produces large disparities in the outcome of the legal
actions, and differences in organizational structures have an impact on the efficiency
of the legal antidiscrimination framework. Comparative studies on the implementa-
tion of antidiscrimination laws have shown significant variations across European
countries when it comes to access to rights and the efficiency of legal action. For
example, shifting the burden of proof – meaning that the defendant (e.g., the
employer) has to prove that the treatment was not discriminatory – is not available
in all EU countries, and in those where the provision exists, not in all judicial pro-
cedures. Protections against victimization of plaintiffs in retaliation of their claim
are inconsistent in some countries, and lack credibility in others. Sanctions and
remedies differ greatly in their capacity to punish and prevent discrimination acts,
reflecting the different concepts of equality and the legal order governing each
national context. Even under the EU antidiscrimination law, no comprehensive sys-
tem has been adopted so far.

Equality bodies are generally entitled to receive complaints, to assist victims in
litigations and sometimes have the legal power to take sanctions and make legal
decisions. Negotiation, mediation, or conciliation are often preferred to litigation
since discrimination cases often proved to be difficult to prosecute in the courts.
Equality bodies have frequently prioritized strategic litigation whereas a limited
number of cases are selected to set changes in court practices. Filing a complaint in
court might be complicated in some countries, and the outcome of these complaints
are rarely successful (FRA 2012). A gap between complaints and lawsuits can be
observed in France where the former equality body (HALDE) treated 5658 files of
complaints in 2010, of which 127 legal cases were completed (in various catego-
ries). In less than a handful of cases, condemnations actually took place, although a
large number of files had been treated through mediation. In general, legal action
against ethnic and racial discrimination is less developed than against sex or dis-
ability discrimination. For example, in England and Wales in 2019, the Employment
Tribunal has treated 9427 complaints of sex discrimination, 6919 for disability,
3589 for race, and 753 for religion. In addition, 27,730 cases came under the equal
pay law, which is a sub-type of sex discrimination. Although legal prosecution is an
important part of antidiscrimination action, the legal framework has to be comple-
mented by policies and more proactive strategies to control practices and processes
without waiting for a complaint to be filed in.

## 7.2 Antidiscrimination Policies: Positive Action

Despite the difference in wording, affirmative action and positive action are essen-
tially the same kinds of policies. The former concept originated in the US, while the
latter, inspired by the UK, was adopted by the European action plan against dis-
crimination (McCrudden 1986). As Daniel Sabbagh summarizes it, the goal of such
positive action “is to counter deeply entrenched social practices that reproduce
group-structured inequality (even in the absence of intentional discrimination) by
creating positive externalities beyond individual recipients” (Sabbagh 2011, 109).
Still, there exists a variety of measures in positive action policies that differentiate
them along a continuum of the transformative powers of the actions.

### 7.2.1 Awareness Raising

All antidiscrimination policies begin with awareness raising through communica-
tion campaigns. The objective is to disseminate the framing in terms of discrimina-
tion to create consciousness among victims and potential authors. Indeed, the
capacity to tackle discrimination depends on the conceptualization of the phenom-
enon, as well as the underlying understanding of how it operates and what conse-
quences it causes for disadvantaged groups. There are different ways to address
biases and inequalities generated by discrimination, beginning with programs to
empower underrepresented minorities, actions to pursue a higher level of impartial-
ity in decision-making by acting directly on processes and developing training and
eventually schemes to impose preferential treatment for certain categories of disad-
vantaged groups, including quota systems. In the following, we detail some of these
actions with examples from practices in different countries. Although there are
trends of cross-national harmonization of legal frameworks, antidiscrimination pol-
icies tend to remain country-specific. What applies to one country might not be
available in another one, even in Europe where the European Commission has stim-
ulated the adoption of common legal and practical tools.
### 7.2.2 Outreach Programs

One way to increase participation in the education or labor markets is to develop information about opportunities to underrepresented ethnic and racial minorities. These programs are called “outreach” because they target specific population groups or places that are usually not reached by information about the existence of opportunities. The rationale behind these programs is that minorities do not consider applying to selective tracks in education or advantageous job positions because they do not feel entitled to it or do not have access to the relevant information. Outreach programs are frequent in education to attract minority students in selective programs where they tend to be highly underrepresented. In France, for example, dedicated preparatory programs were developed in the 2000s to ease the access to elite schools (grandes écoles) for students from high schools located in disadvantaged neighborhoods (Allouch and Buisson-Fenet 2009). In employment, these schemes build on the so-called spatial mismatch theory (see Chap. 3), which suggests that minority members experience greater distance from job markets both spatially and culturally, thus attempting to compensate for this structural disadvantage by disseminating the information about job opportunities in specific locations or toward minority groups. Outreach programs aim at increasing the critical mass of minority applicants but do not address potential discrimination in selection processes.

### 7.2.3 Proactive Policies

One of the main goals of positive actions is to address non-intentional, systemic, and indirect discrimination by identifying biases in apparently neutral procedures. These biases are harder to identify than unfair treatment justified by the expression of prejudices. Subtle discrimination is mainly detected as their disproportionate negative consequences on protected groups. The EEOC in the US defines an adverse impact in employment as “a substantially different rate of selection in hiring, promotion, or other employment decision which works to the disadvantage of members of a race, sex, or ethnic group.” The EU law develops a similar approach in its definition of indirect discrimination (see Chap. 2), as the European Convention on Human Rights which retains that “a difference in treatment may take the form of disproportionately prejudicial effects of a general policy or measure which, though couched in neutral terms, discriminates against a group.”

Thus, decisions, procedures, and selection schemes (in employment, housing, education, but also in the allocation of goods and services) have to be monitored to check the impartiality or neutrality of the process. Monitoring systems are frequently, but not exclusively, using statistics to detect under-representation of protected groups and biases in processes of selection or allocation of goods and services. It should be clear that the notion of fair representation is attached to those of statistical under-representation, which gives a paramount role of statistics in the
identification of discrimination, the design of policies, their implementation, and their evaluation.

In order to be effective, equality programs in employment must follow these steps as part of their implementation: First, the definition and identification of members of protected groups. This is necessary to collect data, and especially statistics, on their proportion in all aspects of the employment process, such as in the applicant pools. Second, to collect data on the distribution of protected groups in different occupations in the firm, according to the level of qualification of the employees, wages, terminations, access to on the job-training, etc. Third, to compare these data to a statistical benchmark computed at different geographical levels and inside the firm itself to identify the potential gaps, which should then be corrected. Based on these statistical assessments, action plans are designed to reduce or suppress biases at the different steps of the employment relationship (hiring process, wage setting, and career advancement). In essence, equality programs combine the goals of improving the representation of protected groups with meritocratic criteria, since qualifications and skills are still the determining factors in the protected groups' representation.

### 7.2.4 Quantitative Targets and Quotas

Redressing the under-representation of protected groups can be achieved through quantitative objectives. The idea is to measure the evolution of the participation of protected groups to the organizations until they reach a threshold that has been established beforehand. These quantitative objectives can be mandatory, and in this case, one can speak of quotas to achieve, or an invitation to reach a target without specific sanctions if the organization fails to meet its objectives. When a quota is imposed, the organization (university, employer, landlord, parliament) must select a number or proportion of applicants with a specific characteristic (e.g., gender, ethnicity or race, disability, religion) to be incorporated in the program. An example can be given in political representation with reserved seats for women in India or legislated gender quota among candidates to political mandate in six EU countries, in employment for people with disability or in education for ethno-racial minorities in the US in the first phase of affirmative action (until 1973 in employment and 1978 in education). If the quota is not achieved, sanctions (generally financial penalties) against employers or universities might be enforced.

The legitimacy and efficiency of quotas have been extensively discussed in the US, especially during the 1980s with the disengagement from affirmative action by the administration under President Reagan. Although the available research suggests that quotas can be an effective tool, this instrument has often been poorly implemented and remained a contentious provision that is often criticized (Stryker
2001). As a policy tool, racial quotas have been discontinued in the US, but remain in some countries such as Brazil and Malaysia.

In opposition to quotas, most of the countries have adopted a more lenient approach by setting targets and goals that are still using quantitative tools but not in a mandatory way. For example, positive actions in the UK or equal employment opportunity policy in Canada are explicitly forbidding any quota. In these cases, the advantage given to members of protected groups does not appear as explicit as it is the case for preferential treatment.

One important condition for implementing these quantitative strategies is to be able to produce statistics broken down by ethnicity or race, or any kind of relevant category under protection. When it comes to ethnicity and race, the availability of such statistics is rather limited in most of the European countries, and thus limit the diffusion of these tools.

## 7.3 Promoting Diversity

Aside from public policies, there are initiatives undertaken directly by the business community. Although diversity management at its inception was a by-product of equal employment policies (Dobbin 2011), it has often been implemented by companies in countries where such policies have never been developed, especially in Europe (Wrench 2007). Indeed, the spread of diversity management seems to reflect the extension of multinational companies and the standardization of human resources processes. Diversity management tools include audits to identify biases in the organizational processes, mentoring programs, career guidance, diversity training, outreach activities toward underrepresented groups to diversify recruitment channels, etc.

The main idea behind these initiatives is that creating a diversity-friendly workplace by facilitating the recruitment, inclusion, promotion, and retention of “diverse employees” and managing properly this diverse workforce will help to increase productivity and give a market advantage to companies both in the domestic market – by reaching out to immigrants and their descendants as customers – and in markets abroad. Likewise, in the context of labor shortages, developing diversity management tools has become an important means for attracting and retaining staff. In addition, there may also be a value-added stemming from diversity itself because bringing together people with different backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives may increase the potential and the expertise of the working unit. Developing a diversity plan and targeting a fair representation of minority members in the workforce also have other benefits by helping to reduce the risks of litigations. The objective here is the reduction of the legal threat and the penalties resulting from legal cases. Further, employees may favor working environments that promote inclusion, respect, openness, collaboration, and equity. Finally, diversity management may involve benefits in terms of better publicity, and thus be used as a reputational tool by the firm. The European Commission has popularized the advantages of diversity in the economy under the heading of the business case for diversity (2005).
Diversity management has its roots in the US during the 1980s, during the peak of equal employment policies. A new class of “diversity managers” was created to implement actions against systemic discrimination rather than intentional discrimination. In 1980, diversity management was applied by less than 5% of a sample of 389 employers surveyed by Dobbin and Kelly, and almost 50% of them had implemented it by 1997 (Dobbin et al. 2007). In Europe, a survey conducted in 2005 found that 52% of companies did not develop any diversity initiatives, and only 21% had well-embedded policies and practices (European Commission 2005). The main motivations of these latter companies were (1) “commitment to equality and diversity as company values,” (2) “access to new labor pools and high-quality employees,” and (3) “economic effectiveness, competitiveness, and profitability. In contrast to the US, compliance with the law was not a major driver for these companies, which reflects that the antidiscrimination framework in Europe tends to be less pressuring. Interestingly, the survey showed also that only 31% of the companies implementing diversity initiatives were monitoring and reporting the results and impacts of their actions. In the remaining 69%, enhancing diversity was mainly an intention that could not be assessed.

Whereas equal employment policies comprise legally binding compliance to standards and codes of practices, fulfilling a diversity charter or acquiring a diversity label depends on voluntary initiatives from organizations. In contrast to the latter, however, these tools involve public or semi-public bodies that are at least proposing the tool and — in the case of labels — involve certifying participation and compliance.

A diversity charter is a document by which a company or a public institution commits itself to respect and promote diversity and equal opportunities at the workplace. More or less detailed provisions or targets can be stated in these charters. One of the first of its kind in Europe, the French diversity charter, was launched in October 2004 and has been signed by more than 3450 companies since then. This example has been replicated by almost all EU countries. The country-specific charters differ by their coverage and their scope, but the commitments are similar in their principles. Being voluntary, these charters do not entail specific monitoring to check if companies respect their commitments. As such, the charters testify that the companies show some concerns about promoting diversity, even if such a concern may not necessarily translate into concrete actions. Reviews of the actions implemented according to the charter are suggested, but in most cases, the audits focus on the design of the programs and not on their outcomes.

Diversity labels go one step further by delivering a certification based on an assessment of the measures taken and their implementation. An independent body is responsible for delivering the label, which is based on an audit of the companies. A diversity label was established in France in 2008 and is delivered by a commission made up of representatives of the national administration, the social partners, the National Organization of Human Resources Managers and experts. The label is delivered for 3 years; more than 260 companies have received it thus far. A similar diversity label is granted by the Brussels-Capital Region in Belgium. Some
countries, such as Belgium, have also established specific diversity awards, rewarding good practices in this domain by employers.

Among the elements that can produce discrimination, notably with respect to the crucial first stage of the recruitment process, the formatting and contents of the CV of job applicants have been a major concern among equal opportunity policy makers and diversity managers. The recruitment process involves some kind of discretion from recruiters, and the more the room for discretion, the more stereotypes and prejudice might be activated. A concrete strategy to reduce the level of discretion in hiring procedures is to standardized job application documents in a way that only useful information about the applicants should be delivered. Building on the findings of correspondence test studies that clearly show that names and other signals of minority background foster negative selection (see Chaps. 4 and 5), the idea to promote blind or anonymous CVs has gained traction in France, Germany, and the UK. The advantage of anonymous CVs is to reduce the information that conveys signals related to discrimination, such as age, gender and ethnicity/race or nationality. The expectation is that applicants who will not be screened out at the first stage of the process will be able to demonstrate their capacities at the later stage and will eventually access higher opportunities for recruitment. A body of studies has tried to measure the outcomes of this measure in Germany (Krause et al. 2012), the Netherlands (Blommaert et al. 2014), France (Behaghel et al. 2015) and in Sweden (Aslund and Skans 2012). All of these studies but one (in France) found that ethnic minorities benefit from anonymity, but still encounter a harder selection at the stage of the job interview. The French study concluded that while women did benefit from anonymity, this was not the case for applicants with a minority background. One explanation for this unexpected finding, shared by Krause et al. (2012) in Germany, is that employers who favor diversity might advantage applicants with a migration background.

## 7.4 Assessing Antidiscrimination Policies

The complex schemes of monitoring and reporting attached to antidiscrimination laws and policies clearly run the risk of only being an attractive but purposeless platform if the operators do not fully commit to the program. Supervising the achievement of programs is, therefore, an inseparable element contributing to their efficiency. In most cases, compliance with monitoring is not guaranteed by sanctions or penalties, and participation in reporting may be far from effective.

In the Netherlands, the assessment of monitoring provided for by the 1994 *Wet bevordering evenredige arbeidskansen voor allochtonen* (Act on the Promotion of Proportional Labor market Participation of Allochthones; *Wet BEAA*) demonstrates that only 14% of employers fulfill all of the legal provisions, including the submission of a report on the situation of minorities within the company (Guiraudon et al. 2005). Less than 60% of these had applied for the obligatory registration of the ethnic origin of employees. The *Act for Stimulation of Labour Market Participation*,
which replaced the Wet BEAA in 1998, clearly improved the level of participation, however: In 2001, 70% of employers prepared an annual report detailing the level of representation of ethnic minorities within their company and the measures taken to improve this over the following year. However, while the objectives set representation at 10%, the results reached their ceiling at 8.5%. Although employers with more than 35 people staff were legally obliged to register ethnicity and to submit reports every year, they could also refuse to comply without having to motivate their refusal. The decision to discontinue the SAMEN law in 2003 was partly justified by the lack of participation of employers in the scheme (Guiraudon et al. 2005).

In the UK, the assessment of equality policies is incorporated into the design of the equality programs themselves. Under the Race Relation Act of 2000 (amended), the duties are stricter for public authorities than for private employers. A 1998 survey on the working conditions within companies (Workplace Employee Relations Survey, WERS), which was analyzed in 2003, showed that equality programs are applied within two thirds of companies, 97% of public companies and 57% from the private sector. The programs are implemented more often in companies that have a higher representation of “minorities” (women, ethnic minorities, and disabled people). Among the various actions provided for by the equality programs, the monitoring of employees’ ethnic and racial origin is only carried out by 30% of companies. This disappointing level of monitoring also applies to companies from the public sector, where only 48% of companies have implemented it.

A review by Dex and Purdam (2005) did not find significant improvements after the amendment of the Race Relation Act in UK in 2000: the Commission for Racial Equality found in 2003 that just over a third of organizations were responding to the duties, though most of the public organizations had produced a race equality scheme or policy. In the private sector, a 2003 survey with 500 UK directors identified similar gaps between policies aiming at promoting equal opportunities and the implementation of monitoring system: only 38% of organizations had collected information on the number of employees by ethnic group, and 22% got this information by job positions. In their review of the monitoring practices of ten employers in UK, Dex and Purdam (2005) revealed that although all the employers were collecting data for equal opportunities monitoring purposes, only a few were able to compile these data in tables with standardized categories matching the codes of practice of the Commission for Racial Equality, and hardly any of them were analyzing the data produced (Dex and Purdam 2005, 16–18).

Beyond the assessments of a system's performance, which is an important condition in assessing its results, a key question remains unanswered: Do the schemes succeed in reducing the consequences of discrimination, easing prejudice, and improving the position of the protected groups? Few programs provide appraisals linking the implementation of initiatives with the improvement of the situation of the protected groups. The Employment Equity Act Annual Reports in Canada, however, are notable exceptions as they provide this type of appraisal. A representation index by group is calculated for each company and business sector. Its variation provides an indication of the impact of the programs. In 2010, the representation of aboriginals, women, and visible minorities had improved, both quantitatively and
qualitatively. On the other hand, this remained poor for disabled people. The representation index (the rate of availability relating to the size of a group within the labor force) is established at 95.9 for women, 80.7 for natives and 77.5 for visible minorities but only 46.9 for disabled people.

In the US, a great deal of research has been conducted to assess the impact of affirmative action on employment and education for minorities and women. Holzer and Neumark (2000) demonstrate that the organizations that have adopted the affirmative action programs have seen a clear improvement in the representation of minorities and women in relation to those who did not. However, women, and especially white women, have benefited more from these policies than racial minorities. These findings have been renewed by the evaluation of the outcomes of diversity programs conducted by Dobbin and Kalev (2016). In an assessment of the employment practices and workforce reviews of more than 800 companies in the US from 1971 to 2002, they conclude that mandatory diversity training was producing poor return while programs strengthening managerial responsibility and accountability with respect to equality tended to be particularly effective.

## 7.5 Conclusion

This chapter has reviewed how policies can address discrimination, with the different frames and tools that have been adopted. The first stage of these policies is to raise awareness and disseminate concepts and definitions of discrimination in legal action. The second and more effective stage aims at monitoring decision-making processes and selection practices to promote equal treatment beyond formal principles. Proactive policies can be called positive action or affirmative action: in all cases, they rely on the existence of statistics broken down by ethnicity, race, or equivalent characteristics to uncover unfair treatment and disadvantage faced by minorities. The lack of such statistics in schools, workplaces, housing, or health systems makes it complicated, if not impossible, to implement most of the schemes of positive action policies. This explains why most European countries fail to develop effective policies against ethnic and racial discrimination, in stark contrast with gender equality programs.

Because antidiscrimination policies address structural inequalities rooted in historical systems of domination, it would be very optimistic to think that they could redress wrongs done by long established and renewed prejudices. For this reason, they have to be judged in the long run. Not only do they need time to effectively tackle discrimination, but their legitimacy is always fragile. If public opinion accepts the implementation of policies and actions targeting minorities when responsibilities of the state are obvious, such support declines dramatically when blatant racism and racial gaps tend to diminish. Opposition to race-based affirmative action or positive action has increased in countries that have pioneered such policies, such as the US. This reminds us that fighting discrimination is not a zero-sum game: when losers improve their position, former winners tend to regret their privileges.
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Chapter 8
Conclusion

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Check for
updates

This book has provided an overview of the current field of discrimination research, emphasizing how race, ethnicity and minority status shape current opportunities in Europe. It has outlined key concepts, theories, and methods; suggested how discrimination plays out differently in different social domains and how experiences of discrimination impact individuals and groups; and it has provided a brief synthesis of the policies developed to combatting discrimination.

Since its inception as a research field in the US in the 1950s, the study of dis-
crimination has flourished over the last 20–30 years in Europe. This is no coinci-
dence. European countries have, in this time period, gradually turned multicultural
and multireligious, where a continuous inflow of immigrants from all over the
world, alongside the coming of age of their descendants, has triggered an unprece-
dented level of migration-related diversity. Today, most European countries are
characterized by high levels of ethno-racial inequality, where disparities between
groups in education, work, housing, and health are striking. Decades of research
have made evident that widespread discrimination plays a role in creating these
inequalities, raising the question of whether the previously dominant conceptual
frame of integration is insufficient or even inadequate to account for the socio-
structural position of ethno-racial minorities over time.

8.1 Pervasive, Perpetuating, and Persistent

As shown by the last Eurobarometer survey on discrimination (European
Commission 2019), the awareness of ethnic discrimination is present, as it is per-
ceived as widespread by 59% of respondents in Europe. However, this awareness
does not suggest that proactive antidiscrimination policies find large support, nor
that prejudices against ethnic, racial, and religious minorities have diminished.
Rather, the findings of the impressive breadth of research reveal a worrying picture
of enduring discrimination in immigrant-receiving societies across space and time,
suggesting the contour of troubling “three P’s” in contemporary European societies: discrimination appears to be pervasive, perpetuating, and persistent.

## 8.1.1 Pervasive Presence

First of all, meta-analyses have documented that immigrant-origin groups face significant discrimination in access to employment in nine countries in Europe and North America (Quillian et al. 2019), a well as in the broader OECD area (Zschirnt and Ruedin 2016). Yet the level of discrimination seems to vary considerably across national contexts: In some countries, native-majority job applicants receive close to twice the callbacks of minority applicants, while in others, natives receive about 25% more (Quillian et al. 2019). This cross-national variation suggests that the institutional contexts surrounding discriminatory actions matter.

## 8.1.2 Perpetuating Configuration

In contrast to predictions in integration and assimilation theories, the level of discrimination facing immigrants and their descendants do not seem to differ substantially. This suggests that ethnicity, and presumably religion, are driving factors for discrimination (Heath and Cheung 2007; Carlsson 2010; Zschirnt and Ruedin 2016; Di Stasio et al. 2019). Moreover, abundant evidence from a range of different studies shows the existence of clear ethnic hierarchies, where European-origin groups experience significantly less discrimination than non-European origin groups. Such group differences in the level of discrimination are documented directly, by the use of field experiments, (Quillian et al. 2019), as well as indirectly, by the use of the residual method (e.g., Heath et al. 2008; Heath and Brinbaum 2014) and various studies of experiences of discrimination (e.g., Beauchemin et al. 2018; Beigang et al. 2017; Andriessen et al. 2014). In sum, these studies suggest that a growing process of racialization is currently taking place in Europe.

## 8.1.3 Persistent Pattern

A major concern arises from the fact that, in spite of the implementation of antidiscrimination measures, levels of hiring discrimination in the US and the UK remain largely unchanged over time (Quillian et al. 2017; Heath and Di Stasio 2019). It is not clear whether the same is true for other European countries, yet the adoption of antidiscrimination legislation in Europe in the 2000s does not appear to have had an impact on the extent of discrimination (Zschirnt and Ruedin 2016). In many countries, measures to address discrimination have been adopted. Systematic monitoring
of their implementation and of the effectiveness of single measures in various con-
texts could stimulate a collective learning process aimed at reaching beyond formal
also effective equality.

8.2 Discrimination and Integration Revisited

The three P’s raise fundamental questions about the long-term prospects of integra-
tion, as has been the dominant frame of analyses in the field of migration studies for
decades. Of course, integration may occur despite persistent discrimination, as evi-
dent in the research on the so-called “integration paradox” (e.g., Schaeffer 2018;
Steinmann 2018). Yet, we need to acknowledge that ethnic and racial discrimination
is part of the current European reality, despite decades of legal efforts to eliminate
the problem. How this affects the life chances and identity of Europe’s ethno-racial
minority groups, and whether it obscures the prospects of a long-term “mainstream
expansion” (cf., Alba and Yrizar Barbosa 2016), are among the most pressing ques-
tions of today.

Although theories of integration and discrimination do not necessarily clash, sig-
nificant contradictions arise when it comes to policies. Where antidiscrimination
policies aim at adapting and transforming the structures of societies (institutions,
laws, policies, procedures, practices, and representations) to make them fair and
accessible to immigrants and minorities, integration policies mainly aim at empow-
ering immigrants and their children by enhancing their human and social capital.
Clearly, integration policies are not sufficient for addressing the persistence of dis-
crimination. Much more work is needed to understand what diversity or antidis-
crimination policies work in limiting bias and reducing discrimination.

8.3 Avenues for Future Research

The many advancements of discrimination research over the past decades, com-
bined with the growing concern of the consequences of discrimination at both the
individual, group, and societal levels, point out a range of future research prospects.
Experimental methods have been the key approach to measure the prevalence of
discrimination, yet the use of this methodology in Europe has not yet been able to
disentangle the effects of racial appearance and religious beliefs on opportunities in
labor or housing markets. Due to problems of comparability across research designs,
experimental studies of discrimination also have a long way to go in investigating
how particularities of institutional contexts shape the level of discrimination.

Apart from quantitative and experimental studies that provide estimates of the
prevalence of discrimination in societies committed to equality of opportunity,
many qualitative studies have looked closer into the reactions among those exposed
to unfair treatment, blatant racism, and micro-aggressions in everyday life. Victims
of discrimination are not without agency to react and counter unfair treatment, even though they might prefer to ignore their negative experiences rather than speak against them. Clearly, reacting to discrimination is preconditioned by a consciousness of its existence. The function of research on discrimination is also to create the conditions for this consciousness to rise among minority groups, public authorities, and civil society. More research is needed to fully understand the costs and consequences of discrimination and how experiences of discrimination shape life chances, identity, and potential withdrawal from mainstream society.

Importantly, studying ethnic and racial discrimination requires having access to reliable and comparable data describing population groups that are categorized in relevant categories (i.e., related to ethnicity and race). Statistics in Europe are mainly based on nationality and place of birth, and in only a handful of countries is the same information available about the parents of domestic-born minorities (the second and later generations). These categories only partly describe groups and individuals that are facing ethnic and racial discrimination. The choice to deem ethnic and racial categories as irrelevant and even dangerous has its historical rationale, but the lack of data makes it complicated to map out and understand the consequences of the ongoing process of racialization in European societies (Simon 2017). The lack of appropriate data not only jeopardizes a detailed knowledge of discrimination processes, but it prevents the implementation of monitoring of procedures and practices meant to enhance diversity in domains such as education, work, and health and thus entails a severe limitation in the development of effective antidiscrimination policies. How to establish categories that enable researchers to identify the barriers facing ethno-racial minorities that are at present not detectable in national statistics will be a question of major importance in the years to come.

Even if we have focused on ethnic and racial discrimination in this book, multiple grounds of discrimination are often present in the experience of unfair treatment. Intersectionality is a conceptual framework that offers heuristic perspectives for research on discrimination, and it should be developed beyond the usual articulation between gender and race or class and ethnicity. The increase of religious discrimination against Muslims in Europe – a phenomenon often referred to as Islamophobia – is changing the conceptual frames of ethnic and racial studies (Taras 2012). As shown by recent research in Europe, prejudices against Muslims are widespread (EUMC 2006; Strabac and Listhaug 2008; FRA 2017), fostering what has been called a “racialization of religion” (Meer 2014). Whether and how religion is replacing ethnicity or race as a marker of identity, and hence as the basis of discrimination, should receive more attention in future studies.
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