Malte Reichelt

Islamist terrorist attacks evoke negative stereotypes and symbolic threat perceptions toward men perceived to be of Middle Eastern origin, yet evidence on the labor market consequences of these attacks remains inconsistent. We address this ambiguity by developing a framework that links external shocks to employment outcomes through salience shifts and managerial discretion within workplaces. Salience shifts arise when clusters of terrorist attacks—rather than isolated events—are amplified by media coverage, reinforcing or generating stereotypes and increasing the likelihood that ethnoracial categories become consequential in hiring decisions. Whether such shifts translate into exclusion depends on organizational contexts that mute or permit greater managerial discretion. We test this framework using monthly linked employer–employee data from Germany (1999 to 2019), data on terrorist attacks linked to Islamist motives, name-based measures of perceived origin, and topic-modeled newspaper coverage. Our analyses show that periods marked by multiple Islamist terrorist attacks and heightened media coverage significantly reduce the employment of men perceived to be of Middle Eastern origin. These effects are strongest in workplaces with a high share of non-complex jobs and in settings lacking formal hiring procedures or worker representation, but they are muted where Middle Eastern managers are present. Together, these findings indicate when and where politicized events translate into employment disparities, highlighting the need to account for temporal and organizational contexts.

Immigrants to high-income countries often face considerable and persistent difficulties in the labour market^1,2,3,4,5,6, whereas their native-born children typically experience economic progress^6,7,8,9. However, little is known about the extent to which these immigrant–native earnings differences stem from unequal pay when doing the same work for the same employer versus labour market processes that sort immigrants into lower-paid jobs. Here, using data from nine European and North American countries, we show that the segregation of workers with immigrant backgrounds into lower-paying jobs accounts for about three-quarters of overall immigrant–native earnings differences. Although within-job pay inequality remains notable for immigrants in several countries, our results demonstrate that unequal access to higher-paying jobs is the primary driver of the immigrant–native pay gap across a range of institutionally and demographically diverse contexts. These findings highlight the importance of policies aimed at reducing between-job segregation, such as language training^10,11,12,13, job training^13,14,15, job search assistance programmes^13,15, improving access to domestic education^13,16,17, recognizing foreign qualifications^18,19, and settlement programmes aimed at enhancing access to job-relevant information and networks^13,20,21. Policies that target employer bias in hiring and promotion decisions are also likely to be effective, whereas measures aimed at ensuring equal pay for equal work may have more limited scope for further progress in closing the immigrant–native pay gap^{22,23,24,25,26,27,28}.

Immigrants to high-income countries often face considerable and persistent labor market difficulties upon arrival, while their native-born children typically experience economic progress. However, little is known about the degree to which these immigrant–native earnings differences stem from unequal pay when doing the same work for the same employer versus labor market processes that sort immigrants into lower-paid jobs. Using linked employer–employee data on 13.4 million workers from nine European and North American countries, we find that the segregation of immigrant-background workers in lower-paying jobs accounts for about four-fifths of immigrant–native earnings differences. Although within-job pay inequality remains consequential for immigrants in several countries, our results demonstrate that lack of access to higher-paying jobs is the primary driver of the immigrant–native pay gap across a range of highly diverse institutional and demographic host-country contexts. These findings highlight the importance of policies aimed at reducing between-job segregation, such as language, job training, and job search assistance programs; improving access to domestic education; recognizing foreign qualifications; and settlement programs aimed at enhancing access to job-relevant information and networks. Policies targeting employer bias in hiring and promotion decisions are also likely of high relevance, whereas measures aimed at ensuring equal pay for equal work may have more limited potential for further progress in closing the immigrant–native pay gap.

Despite the widespread use of face masks to combat COVID-19, little is known about their social and behavioral consequences. To understand the impact of face masks on interpersonal trust, we designed a novel experiment to assess the causal impact of face mask use on whether individuals follow economically relevant advice from a stranger. From a survey of more than 2000 US citizens, conducted during July and August 2020, we find that almost 5% fewer individuals trust advice when it is given by someone wearing a mask than when it is given by someone not wearing a mask. While, surprisingly, health-related risks do not seem to alter the way masks affect trust, the effects of masks are particularly large among individuals whose households face economic risks due to COVID-19 and those with below-average normative beliefs about mask wearing. Our results highlight the non-health-related meaning that face masks have developed during COVID-19 and suggest that mask use undermines trust in others among a substantial share of the US population.

Despite the widespread use of face masks to combat COVID-19, little is known about their social and behavioral consequences. To understand the impact of face masks on interpersonal trust, we designed a novel experiment to assess the causal impact of face mask use on whether individuals follow economically relevant advice from a stranger. From a survey of more than 2,000 US citizens conducted during July and August 2020, we find that almost 5 percent fewer individuals trust advice when it is given by someone wearing a mask than when it is given by someone not wearing a mask. While, surprisingly, health-related risks do not seem to alter the way masks affect trust, the effects of masks are particularly large among individuals whose households face economic risks due to COVID-19 and those with below-average normative beliefs about mask wearing. Our results highlight the non-health-related meaning that face masks have developed during COVID-19 and suggest that mask use undermines trust in others among a substantial share of the US population.

COVID-19 and ensuing changes in mobility have altered employment relations for millions of people across the globe. Emerging evidence shows that women may be more severely affected by this change. The pandemic, however, may have an impact beyond the immediate restructuring of employment and shift gender-role attitudes within households as a result of changes in the division of household labor. We analyze a representative sample of respondents in the U.S., Germany, and Singapore and show that transitions to unemployment, reductions in working hours and transitions to working from home have been more frequent for women than for men – although not to the same extent across the three countries. We also demonstrate that among couples who had been employed at the start of the pandemic, men express more egalitarian gender-role attitudes if they became unemployed but their partners remained employed, while women express more traditional attitudes if they became unemployed and their partners remained employed. These results indicate that gender-role attitudes might adapt to the lived realities. The long-term consequences will depend on how both men and women experience further shifts in their employment relations as economies recover.

Motherhood penalties vary strongly across societal contexts. While most studies that aim to explain such differences focus on institutions, a smaller literature refers to the influence of cultural norms or a complex interaction between the two. Empirically, however, it is yet unclear if such norms play a role and how they—jointly with institutions—contribute to motherhood penalties. We make use of a unique historical setting that allows us to assess how societal contexts affect maternal work preferences and labor market outcomes in the short- and long-run. Germany’s division into socialist East and parliamentary democratic West led to considerably different gender norms. But German reunification in 1990 mostly realigned gendered institutions. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), we show that East and West German mothers’ preferred and realized labor force participation and working hours nevertheless remain divergent. We then focus on East German women who moved to the West during and after the country’s transitionary period. Despite moving to a context with more conservative gender norms, East German mothers in the West retain and fulfill their work preferences. Our findings imply that it is the structural legacy of past norms and institutions, not current ones, that shapes maternal work preferences and thus pave the way for motherhood penalties. Moreover, societal norms at the time of childbirth do not directly affect mothers’ labor force participation, working hours, or wages. Gendered outcomes in the labor market are thus highly dependent on institutional and normative changes across cohorts.

The degree of social reproduction varies considerably between industrialized countries, raising the question of which institutional regulations promote or restrict this process. Education is considered the main mediator of social reproduction. Because school tracking – the sorting of children according to ability and interest at different ages – is known to affect educational attainment and the degree of tracking varies strongly across countries, it may thus account for differences in social reproduction. However, empirical studies are scarce, and the total impact of tracking on social reproduction remains ambiguous. Using the European Social Survey (ESS) 2012 and 2014 from 24 countries, we demonstrate that school tracking is strongly associated with higher degrees of social reproduction. Decomposing the process of social reproduction into educational inheritance, educational returns and direct effects of social origin, we find that although all channels contribute to social reproduction, the impact of tracking seems to be exerted through educational inheritance and to a similar degree through direct effects of social origin, whereas educational returns do not seem to be affected. Even net of educational attainment, social origin thus has a stronger effect on social status in tracked systems. We ascribe this effect to differences in qualitative choices within educational tracks, such as fields of study.