Does Religious Bias Begin with your CV?

Job applicants might not want to wear their religion on their sleeves. At least that’s the message that could be taken from a growing number of studies that show religious discrimination often plays a significant role in the hiring process. 

 

In the most extensive studies to date, researchers found that otherwise identical fictitious resumes listing membership in student religious organizations received fewer responses from US employers than those with no mention of religion. The prejudice was stronger in southern states than in New England states, where there is greater diversity of religions and people tend to be more tolerant of other faiths.

“There has been a privatisation of religion,” said Michael Wallace, a sociology professor at the University of Connecticut and co-author of the recently published studies. “We’re perfectly willing to acknowledge the right to religious freedom, but we prefer that religion not be present in public places like schools or workplaces, where there will likely be people with diverse religious beliefs.”

Employers may harbour personal prejudices against certain faiths. They also could fear that people who decide to reveal their religious beliefs — or their atheism — on resumes are more likely to discuss religion and potentially clash with co-workers.

“The religious aspect of the resume may jump out to recruiters and raise the questions of whether such people will disrespect others with a different religious identity — or no religious beliefs at all,” Wallace said.

Religious affiliation, however, could work in an applicant’s favor in some cases. In the study of southern states, Jews actually seemed to have an edge over other applicants. What’s more, religious organizations in the US are allowed to give employment preference to members of their own faith.

But business owners who apply their personal religious beliefs to their companies’ policies would rarely be allowed to show hiring preference to people of their own faith. The exception would be when religion “is a bona fide occupational qualification reasonably necessary [for the company’s] normal operation,” according to the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

That means Hobby Lobby, which the US Supreme Court recently ruled could deny insurance coverage for some female contraceptives because of its owners’ Christian beliefs, probably couldn’t favour Christians in its recruiting. The company runs a chain of arts and crafts stores, where an employee’s religious beliefs would be unlikely to affect business operations. However, companies like Hobby Lobby might try to use their religious beliefs to justify discrimination against gay, lesbian and transgender job candidates.

Studies in France and Greece have found hiring bias for certain religious groups. The French research revealed that a Muslim with African heritage was two-and-a-half times less likely to get called for a job interview in France than an equally qualified Christian with the same ethnic background.

“We find a good deal of evidence that [people] in Christian heritage societies, although themselves secular — and many of them self-declared atheists — see Muslims as presenting a set of cultural norms that are threatening to them,” said David Laitin, a political science professor at Stanford University and one of the authors of the study.

BY Joyce Dubensky