Gender and ethnic discrimination in the rental housing market

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Abstract
We use a field experiment to measure discrimination in the housing market in Stockholm. Four fictitious persons, of different gender, with distinct-sounding Arabic or Swedish names, are randomly assigned to vacant apartments. We extend the study by Ahmed and Hammarstedt ( 2008 Ahmed, A. M. and Hammarstedt, M. 2008. Discrimination in the rental housing market. Journal of Urban Economics, 64: 362–72. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] [Google Scholar] ). There are two new results. First, we provide evidence that there is no or little gender premium for the female with the Arabic name, which suggests that ethnic discrimination dominates the effects of gender. Second, discriminatory behaviour is only found in the suburbs or satellite cities/towns of Stockholm County not in the densely populated, affluent, city centre. Moreover, we can replicate that there is a gender premium for females with Swedish names. However, we are not able to confirm that males with Arabic names face discrimination.