Religious affiliation and hiring discrimination in New England: A field experiment

This article describes a field experiment in which we sent fictitious resumes to advertised job openings in New England, in the Northeast region of the United States. We randomly altered the resumes to indicate affiliation in one of seven religious groups or a control group. Resumes that mentioned any religious affiliation received about one-quarter fewer phone calls than did the control group but there were no significant difference in e-mails received. Muslim applicants received one-third fewer responses from employers, either as phone calls or e-mails, than did the control group. There was also evidence of discrimination against atheists, Catholics and pagans. These findings are consistent with theoretical models of secularization and cultural distaste theory.