Colorism in the Rental Housing Market: Field Experimental Evidence of Discrimination by Skin Color

• In Event: 1264 - Persistent and Evolving Patterns of Discrimination in the Housing Market

Abstract

While sociological research on colorism has affirmed an association between lighter skin and socioeconomic advantage among minorities across a range of outcomes, causal estimates of discrimination are notoriously difficult to generate outside of experimental contexts. Using data from a 2012 audit study conducted by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, here we present field experimental evidence of colorism in the housing market, demonstrating variation by the race of the agent, race of the tester, and the outcome in question. We find that while black and Hispanic testers are penalized for darker skin color on non-monetary outcomes (credit checks, criminal background checks, and number of units shown), results for monetary outcomes follow a more complicated pattern consistent with “statistical discrimination,” wherein individual-level skin color may be read as a proxy for group-level attributes such as socioeconomic status. Our results affirm colorism as a salient basis of new inequality in the present day; complicate the notion that colorism invariably entails advantage for individuals with lighter skin; and emphasize the need to better understand the microsocial dynamics of how color-based stereotypes translate into lived contexts in which interventions might be possible.

Authors

• Amelia R. Branigan, University of Maryland, College Park

• Matthew Hall, Cornell University