Small Grants Recipient Published in the Journal of Human Resources David Phillips, University of Notre Dame
Congratulations to 2013-2014 small grants recipient David
Phillips on the publication of his paper in the Journal of Human
Resources. His paper, “Do Low-Wage Employers Discriminate Against
Applicants with Long Commutes? Evidence from a Correspondence
Experiment,” studies how employers respond to low-wage job
applicants’ home addresses.
David C. Phillips is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Hope
College in Holland, Michigan. His research includes work on
migration of skilled health professionals, staffing and
compensation in public health systems of developing countries,
and the functioning of low-wage labor markets in the United
States.
Urban poverty has become more geographically concentrated in
recent years.[1] Areas of concentrated poverty are also
frequently located relatively far from many job opportunities. If
low-wage employers discriminate against applicants from poor or
more distant neighborhoods, those applicants and their
neighborhoods may face even deeper poverty. In a
new study, I find that employers are less likely to respond
positively to applicants who list addresses in distant, poor
neighborhoods. However, the applicant’s commute distance rather
than neighborhood affluence itself is the largest factor.
Why do employers discriminate against job applicants who reside
in poor, distant neighborhoods? Previous research indicates that
employers call back applicants from these neighborhoods at lower
rates, but the motivation for employer discrimination based on
residential neighborhood remains unclear. Employers could be
responding to long commuting distances, which could lead to
higher employee absence/tardiness rates or fatigue on the job. On
the other hand, employers may perceive workers from particular
neighborhoods to be lower quality workers, on average, and thus
discriminate based on neighborhood characteristics such as
poverty or racial composition rather than distance to the job.
The distinction between discrimination based on commuting
distance versus neighborhood characteristics matters for public
policy. Some policy responses, such as public transit
improvements, may be appropriate if employers respond to distance
itself but not if they respond to fixed neighborhood attributes.
