Ethnic discrimination in contacts with public authorities: A correspondence test among Swedish municipalities

Arbeitspapier

We present a field experiment conducted in order to explore the existence of ethnic discrimination in contact with public authorities. Two fictitious parents, one with a Swedish-sounding name and one with an Arabic-sounding name, sent email inquiries to all Swedish municipalities asking for information about preschool admission for their children. Results show that the parents were treated differently by the municipalities since the individual with the Swedish-sounding name received significantly more responses that answered the question in the inquiry than the individual with the Arabic-sounding name. Also, the individual with the Swedish-sounding name received more warm answers than the individual with the Arabic-sounding name in the sense that the answer from the municipality started with a personal salutation. We conclude that ethnic discrimination is prevalent in public sector contacts and that this discrimination has implications for the integration of immigrants and their children.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: IFN Working Paper ; No. 1271

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination ; Field Experiments ; Public Administration; Public Sector Accounting and Audits
• Subject: Discrimination ; Subtle discrimination ; Authorities ; Field experiment

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Ahmed, Ali M. ; Hammarstedt, Mats
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN)
• (where): Stockholm
• (when): 2019

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/210912
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET