Marianne Bertrand This is Me

Education

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1. 1. www.ala-apa.org

   www.ala-apa.org/newsletter/vol - [Cached]

   Published on: 12/6/2007   Last Visited: 12/6/2007

   Research by Marianne Bertrand
   
   Originally published in Capital Ideas, University of Chicago Newsletter,excerpted from Bertrand, Marianne, and Sendhil Mullainathan.
   ...
   University of Chicago Graduate School of Business professor Marianne Bertrand and Sendhil Mullainathan of Massachusetts Institute of Technology use a field experiment to measure the extent of race-based job discrimination in the current labor market.
   
   From July 2001 to May 2002, Bertrand and Mullainathan sent fictitious resumes in response to 1,300 help-wanted ads listed in the Boston Globe and the Chicago Tribune.
   ...
   "For us, the most surprising and disheartening result is seeing that applicants with African-American names were not rewarded for having better resumes," says Bertrand.
   
   Statistically, the authors found that discrimination levels were consistent across all the occupations and industries covered in the experiment. Even federal contractors (for whom affirmative action is better enforced) and companies that explicitly state that they are an "Equal Opportunity Employer" did not discriminate less.
   
   Creating the Job Applicants
   
   In order to determine the effect of racially distinctive names on callback potential, Bertrand and Mullainathan needed to generate realistic and representative resumes that also would not thwart actual job seekers.
   ...
   "The question may become, 'Do I really want to invest the time to take an evening class to build my resume?'" notes Bertrand.
   ...
   "Names are about identity," says Bertrand.
   ...
   "We're not claiming that employers engage in discriminatory behavior consciously, or that this is necessarily an issue of racism," says Bertrand. "It is important to teach people in charge of hiring about the subconscious biases they may have, and figure out a way to change these patterns."
   
   The nature of the problem also proves to be a dilemma beyond any quick fix.
   
   "I think most African-Americans already realize they need to work much harder than whites to get a job," says Bertrand.
   ...
   Marianne Bertrand is Professor of Economics and Neubauer Family Faculty Fellow at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business.

2. 2. www.aiecon.org

   www.aiecon.org/conference_deta - [Cached]

   Published on: 11/18/2007   Last Visited: 3/9/2008

   Marianne Bertrand, University of Chicago

3. 3. Marianne Bertrand

   www.nber.org/people/marianne_b - [Cached]

   Published on: 3/18/2008   Last Visited: 6/12/2008

   Marianne Bertrand
   
   Graduate School of BusinessUniversity of Chicago5807 South Woodlawn AvenueChicago, IL 60637Tel: 773/834-5943Fax: 773/702-0458