DISCRIMINATION AGAINST ASIAN IMMIGRANTS TO THE US: QUALITY OF THE FIRST ORGANIZATIONAL PLACEMENT

Hiring decisions are complex and subjective and for the most part, unobservable to researchers. In this study we try to overcome this limitation by studying whether nationality influences the evaluation of workers at time of hiring using data collected on all newly hired assistant professors of management and business administration in research-intensive (R1) universities in the Unites States between 2010 and 2021 (N = 452). We focus on the quality of the university into which recently graduated Ph.D. are placed and examine whether first-job placement quality is lower for individuals who were born in East, South and Southeast Asia (Asian nationals henceforth). We coded the publication record of assistant professor at time of hiring as well as a set of demographic characteristics of these hires. As expected, the ranking of the Ph.D. granting institution and the quality and quantity of the publication record are positively related to the quality of the placement. In addition, we find that conditional on Ph.D. granting institution and publication record, Asian nationals are placed at lower-quality universities relative to their peers. We also find that applicants who are Asian nationals require a strong performance signal, in the form of first or second authorship on a paper to narrow the placement gap. Overall, our results are best explained by a combination of direct discrimination against applicants of Asian nationality and a requirement of a higher performance “burden of proof” from these applicants, compared to other applicants.