In Russia, a minority sounding name can cost you the job
The bias hit non-European names hardest, with the capitals showing more of it compared with more diverse cities.
compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com · Inequality and social stratification in Russia during the Putin regime: From market transition to war on UkraineThe resumes were identical except for one line. The schooling matched, the work history matched, and the skills matched. Only the name at the top changed, to suggest whether the job seeker was an ethnic Russian or a member of a minority group.
Two researchers, Bessudnov and Shcherbak, sent more than 9,000 of those applications to job openings in four Russian cities. It was an audit study, a kind of controlled test in which everything stays the same except the trait being examined, in this case the ethnicity signaled by a name.
What came back showed how much a name can matter in Russia. About one in five residents counted as non-ethnic Russian in the 2010 census, and under Vladimir Putin Russia turned into one of the world's largest destinations for migrant workers. Yet employers favored some applicants over others with the same qualifications.
The pattern was specific. Employers discriminated more against non-European minorities than against European minorities. And the bias ran sharper in the two capitals than in a pair of more mixed cities in parts of the country where Soviet policy had once advanced non-ethnic Russians, a background detail noted in the study rather than proof of what caused the difference.
The experiment fits with what other research has found outside the hiring office. Qualitative studies describe mistreatment that is harsh and abusive toward migrants, especially people from outside Europe, at the hands of employers, police officers, teachers, and state officials. Russia's economy needed cheap labor from Ukraine, from countries in Central Asia, and from the South Caucasus, even as Russia's population and its leaders expressed anti-immigrant sentiments.
The burden also falls unevenly inside that migrant workforce. Researchers who surveyed women who had moved from Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan and compared them with Russian-born women in three urban centers found the newcomers faced more mistreatment and more disadvantage on the job, with differences linked to legal status, homeland, and other circumstances.
For all that detail about newcomers, much less is known about native-born ethnic minorities who are Russian citizens. Surveys show many ethnic Russians hold negative views of non-Russians, especially people of Asian origin, but researchers say the economic consequences have been under studied. The study points to hiring decisions that end without a callback as the place to look next.
Questions people ask
How does a resume audit study work?
Researchers create fake but realistic resumes that are equal in schooling, experience, and skills, then send them to real openings. The only difference is the name or other signal for ethnicity. Differences in callbacks then point to bias, because qualifications cannot explain the gap.
Who counts as a non-European minority in this research?
The hiring study does not define which groups it counted in each category, it only contrasts non-European minorities with European minorities. A separate survey cited in the review focused on migrants from Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. The review says research on native-born minorities remains limited.
Why would discrimination be worse in Moscow and St. Petersburg?
The study documents the larger gap in Moscow and St. Petersburg but does not establish why. The authors note that the more diverse cities are in areas with a history of Soviet advancement of non-ethnic Russians, but that is context, not proof of cause. Any broader explanation would need additional research.