What’s in a name? For blacks, a job

Resumes get more callbacks with ‘white sounding’ names

By Justin Pope
ASSOCIATED PRESS

BOSTON, Sept., 28 — When Vonnessa Goode gives birth in a few weeks, one of her first decisions could be among the toughest: whether to give her daughter a distinctively black name.

ON THE ONE hand, Goode and the child’s father don’t want their daughter “robbed of her ethnicity,”she said. On the other, she believes a distinctively black name could end up being an economic impediment.

“I do believe now when a resume comes across an employer’s desk they could be easily discriminated against because they know that person is of African-America descent,” she said. “It’s a difficult ecision.”

Minorities of all kinds have wrestled with
whether to celebrate their culture by giving their
children distinctive names, or help them “blend in” ith a name that won’t stick out. Thousands of Jews ave changed their names, hoping to improve their conomic prospects in the face of discrimination, as haveAsians and other minorities.
Blacks, however, have chosen increasingly
distinctive names over the past century, with the
trend accelerating during the 1960s.

DISTINCT DIFFERENCE

Researchers who have looked at Census records ave found that 100 years ago, the 20 most popular ames were largely the same for blacks and whites; now nly a handful are among the most popular with both
groups. Names like DeShawn and Shanice are almost
exclusively black, while whites, whose names have also
become increasingly distinctive, favored names like
Cody and Caitlin.

Two recent papers from the Cambridge-based
National Bureau of Economic Research draw somewhat
different conclusions about whether a black name is a
burden. One, an analysis of the 16 million births in
California between 1960 and 2000, claims it has no
significant effect on how someone’s life turns out.

The other, however, suggests a black-sounding
name remains an impediment to getting a job. After
responding to 1,300 classified ads with dummy resumes,
the authors found black-sounding names were 50 percent
less likely to get a callback than white-sounding
names with comparable resumes.

If nothing else, the first paper, by the NBER’s
Roland Fryer and the University of Chicago’s Steven
Levitt, based on California birth data, provides
probably the most detailed snapshot yet of distinctive
naming practices. It shows, for instance, that in
recent years, more than 40 percent of black girls were
given names that weren’t given to even one of the more
than 100,000 white girls born in the state the same
year.

The paper says black names are associated with
lower socioeconomic status, but the authors don’t
believe it’s the names that create an economic burden.

Using Social Security numbers, they track the
changes in circumstances of women born in the early
1970s who then show up in the data in the 1980s and
’90s as mothers themselves. The data also show whether
those second-generation mothers have health insurance
and in which ZIP codes they reside — admittedly
imperfect measurements of economic achievement.

The data do appear to show that a poor woman’s
daughter is more likely to be poor when she gives
birth herself — but no more so because she has a
distinctively black name.

WHERE YOU COME FROM

To Fryer, that suggests black parents shouldn’t
be afraid to choose ethnic names. It also, he says,
suggests more broadly that for blacks to improve
economically, they don’t have to change their culture,
but should push for greater integration in society.

“It’s not really that you’re named Kayesha that
matters, it’s that you live in a community where
you’re likely to get that name that matters,” Fryer
said.

The University of Chicago’s Marianne Bertrand
and MIT’s Sendhil Mullainathan, however, appeared to
find that a black-sounding name can be an impediment,
in another recent NBER paper entitled “Are Emily and
Greg More Employable Than Lakisha and Jamal?”

The authors took the content of 500 real
resumes off online job boards and then evaluated them,
as objectively as possible, for quality, using such
factors as education and experience. Then they
replaced the names with made-up names picked to “sound
white” or “sound black” and responded to 1,300 job ads
in The Boston Globe and Chicago Tribune last year.

Previous studies have examined how employers
responded to similarly qualified applicants they meet
in person, but this experiment attempted to isolate
the response to the name itself.

White names got about one callback per 10
resumes; black names got one per 15. Carries and
Kristens had call-back rates of more than 13 percent,
but Aisha, Keisha and Tamika got 2.2 percent, 3.8
percent and 5.4 percent, respectively. And having a
higher quality resume, featuring more skills and
experience, made a white-sounding name 30 percent more
likely to elicit a callback, but only 9 percent more
likely for black-sounding names.

Even employers who specified “equal opportunity
employer” showed bias, leading Mullainathan to suggest
companies serious about diversity must take steps to
confront even unconscious biases — for instance, by
not looking at names when first evaluating a resume.

STUDIES SHORTCOMINGS

Both studies have their shortcomings; the
California records give only broad indicators of
economic achievement, and studying whose resumes
elicit callbacks doesn’t show who ultimately gets the
jobs or what they do once employed.

But both also point to dilemmas for advocates
of greater economic opportunity for blacks. Some, like
Fryer, are eager to show black culture isn’t a
handicap, and black parents shouldn’t shy away from
it. On the other hand, Bertrand and Mullainathan’s
work suggests a black name could still conceivably
hold someone back. The question is whether a
distinctive name is a cause or consequence of black
isolation.

Where is Goode leaning? She says her daughter
will likely end up with a “neutral” name, Naomi or
Layla perhaps, that won’t signal her race either way.

Michelle Botus, a 37-year-old student at Bunker
Hill Community College who has named her four children
Asia, Alaysia, Khalima and Denzil, said she would
advise mothers to choose names they like, then make
sure their children get the education they need to
rise above any discrimination they face.

“The fact you didn’t give the child the name
you wanted, your regrets could be manifested in other
ways later on,” said Botus. “I would say go for it.
Just the fact that the mother would have the insight
to have a dilemma, that means she’s thinking, and
that’s one of the most important skills in parenting.”

http://msnbc.com/news/971739.asp?0cv=CB20