Name Discrimination! How It Affects Job and Career Choices, Life Status, Overall Success:
Strange but true.
You may think this is far out, but bear
with me a moment. Take a look at this table. It shows how you can be stereotyped
according to your name.
What’s In A Name?POSITIVE:
People Thought They Were…
Intelligent:
- Female: Abigail, Eleanor, Lisa, Meredith and Rebecca
- Male: Clifford, David, Edward, John, Samuel, Ned and Tim
Leaders:
- Female: Ruth
- Male: Alexander, Dwight and Lance
Hardworking:
- Female: Ada, Ingrid, Marie and Margaret
- Male: Jake, Manuel, Ron and Todd
Entrepreneurial and Professional:
- Female: Lorraine and Sylvia
- Male: Gregory and Ted
Talented:
- Female: Tina
- Male: Neil
Wealthy:
- Female: Audrey, Paige and Victoria
- Male: Lucius, Edmond and Claude
Blue-collar:
- Female: Roxy
- Male: Arnie
Refined:
- Female: Indira, Calista and Grace
- Male: Nigel, Alistair, Vaughn
Ambitious:
- Female: Leigh
- Male: Cedric
Organized:
- Female: Julianne
Outgoing:
- Female: Bernadette, Christy, Elaine, Gwen, Joy, Kathy, Kim, Patricia,
Nancy and Wendy- Male: Allen, Cole, Danny, Ed, Gary, Jim, Russ and Rob
Accountants/Nerdy:
- Female: Minerva and Ingrid
- Male: Myron and Reynold
Teachers:
- Female: Trudy
- Male: Thomas
Wealthy lawyers:
- Male: Drew
NEGATIVE:
People thought they were...
Deceitful = Oswald
Awkward = Angus
Show-Off = Don
Bratty= Dennis
A Jerk = Ace
Stubborn = Rolf
Two-faced = Vera
Bossy= Joyce and Myrna
Opinionated = Rhea and Maud
Old and Overweight = Dolores
Dumb = Candy, Kiki and Vanna
Source: CareerBuilder.com and Behind The Name
But what has this got to do with personal finance? Well actually, a
lot. Stereotyping has its financial ramifications which have been recognized
through several studies.
We live in a fairly prejudiced world. But “name
discrimination” takes the cake. Maybe my diversified work place and my exposure
to one of the most liberal work environments in the world (here in San
Francisco, CA) has somehow conned me into thinking that things were cool at the
office. Not to mention that all the companies I’ve worked for have solid stances
on equal opportunity.
So I found it almost ridiculous that something
that seemed so arbitrarily personal could stand in the way of your financial
success and status. Apparently there are studies that prove that your NAME, of
all things, can make a difference to your social and financial standing.
Well here are some specifics that prove that your name can wreck
your chances of getting ahead, particularly if you have an African-American
sounding name.
How A Name Affects Employment and Job Opportunities
A National Bureau of Economic Research Paper shows that job applicants with white names had a 50% chance of getting a callback over those who had African-American names. That is, traditional white sounding names only had to send 10 resumes to get one callback, while those that didn’t had to send out 15 resumes per callback. One of their unsettling findings is that maybe it’s employer bias in play, or the perception that race is tied to productivity.
Other facts from the study:
*Only resumes were reviewed; face to face meetings never took place.
*A white name’s callbacks yielded the equivalent of eight additional years of experience.
*Residential address also mattered to some degree, with more callbacks received for resumes
tied to wealthier, more educated or more-white zip codes.
*Names made a bigger impact on results than addresses did.
*Results were the same across occupation and industry categories covered in the experiment.
*For companies with the “equal opportunity” byline, results didn’t seem to make a difference!
*Only when a name didn’t provide a clue to race, were other elements of the resume considered.
*More education and more skills displayed on a resume with an ethnic sounding name didn’t make a difference to the outcome.
*Names that indicated gender also had an effect on results.
*Names that worked in the experiment: Neil, Brett, Greg, Emily, Anne and Jill.
*Names that didn’t work in the experiment: Tamika, Ebony, Aisha, Rasheed, Kareem and Tyrone.Could initial quick screening of resumes by headhunters cause this
discriminatory effect? Imagine going through a huge pile of resumes which you
need to whittle down to a manageable size. Without realizing it, an HR
representative may be unwittingly applying their immediate impressions on the
pile of paper before them. What else can they go on anyway?
How A Name Affects Housing Opportunities
Beyond snagging jobs, it turns
out that name discrimination is also alive and well in the rental circuit.
Another study by the Journal of Applied Social Psychology revealed these facts:From 1,100 e-mail inquiries to Los Angeles-area landlords asking about
vacant apartments advertised online, the traditional white sounding name
elicited 89% of positive replies. A foreign sounding name brought in 66% of
replies while the African-American name took in 56%. A landlord’s positive
reply consisted of a follow up appointment to show off the property for
lease or an indication that the place was available.
How A Name Affects
Career Choices
Yet another study has struck fear in the hearts of
would be parents. It turns out that kids with gender specific names become
discouraged from certain educational interests thus affecting their long term
course of study. What this means is that if you are named a girly sounding name,
you end up avoiding math and the sciences. Sounds weird but true!Girls who are given very feminine names, such as Anna, Emma or Elizabeth, are
less likely to study maths or physics after the age of 16, a remarkable
study has found. The effect is so strong that parents can set twin daughters
off on completely different career paths simply by calling them Isabella and
Alex, names at either end of the spectrum. A study of 1,000 pairs of sisters
in the US found that Alex was twice as likely as her twin to take maths or science at a higher level.Can a Black
Why would this happen? The explanation given is that like it or not, people have expectations of others based on their name. These expectations affect one’s self-image and cause typecasting. I guess a feminine person is not supposed to be studying math or physics.
This typecasting also works with ugly sounding names or those names identified with lower class or status. Those with lower class names (spelled in an unusual way or with punctuations) would average 3 to 5 percent lower than others with conventional names. Again, this was caused by imposed expectations. From the study, it was scary to hear that teachers who first saw a class roster admitted that they couldn’t help but form impressions of the children because of their names, before they all met.
Bottom line: I’m being somewhat tongue-in-cheek here, but think twice before naming your kids something bizarre, different, unique or even ethnic. The world is cruel and there are unfair
consequences to doing something as commendable as honoring your forefathers with authentic names granted to future generations of your family line. Also, that immediate profit you can get by offering to name your kid GoldenPalaceDotCom is not worth their future. No matter how tempting it is, don’t do it!
In Conclusion: Forget Stan, Candy or Adolf
I agree with something I read, that “names are powerful indicators of who we are.” Our name serves as the label to our identity, pointing to culture, religious affiliation, sex, social position, ethnic background, tribal affiliation and even age.
Even where I work, more than a few guys have changed their names because, they claim, it was easier to remember and pronounce. What else is this but the first subtle step taken towards assimilation and the fulfillment of their American dream. Because of this, I wonder if to give your kid an edge in life, that you should consider more conventional and ordinary names?
Other Resources:
Name Affect Job Prospects?
A Roshanda By Any Other
Name
If you want to find out how your name rates, try out this interactive tool by
entering your name in the search box.
1 comment:
That's really interesting!
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