(Credit: ~Zibik/Pixabay)
Elham Asaad Buaras
Hijab-wearing Muslim women endure significant religious discrimination when applying for jobs in Germany, the Netherlands, and Spain suggests an international survey of three major European Union countries.
Utrecht University in the Netherlands, Oxford University in the UK, and the German Centre for Integration and Migration Research conducted a joint field survey on the discrimination faced by religious minorities seeking jobs in Germany, the Netherlands, and Spain.
Titled, Discrimination Unveiled: A Field Experiment on the Barriers Faced by Muslim Women in Germany, the Netherlands, and Spain, the study appears in the European Sociological Review of the Oxford Academic.
The experiment, published on July 2, was conducted with the CVs of the same people by using the same content and information with both with and without hijab photos.
As CV photos show whether a person wears a hijab, the experiment is intended to demonstrate to what extent hijab-wearing women receive offers from employers. The results in the Netherlands showed that 35 per cent of women with headscarves received responses from employers, while this rate rose to 70 per cent among those not wearing them.
In Germany, the experiment revealed that 25 per cent of candidates with hijab and 53 per cent of candidates without hijab received responses.
“Muslims are perceived by the public at large as a difficult-to-integrate group, mainly due to their conservative gender role attitudes and high levels of religiosity, which are seemingly at odds with European values and the secular lifestyles of Western societies,” the article stressed.
It presented “robust evidence that veiled [hijab] Muslim women are discriminated against in Germany and the Netherlands, but only when applying for jobs that require a high level of customer contact.”
“In Spain, however, the level of discrimination against veiled [hijab] Muslim women is much smaller than in the other two countries,” it stated.
According to the research, 48.5 per cent of Muslim women without hijab received responses from employers in the Netherlands. This number decreased to 34.5 per cent among Muslim women with a hijab.
In Germany, even though employers responded to the job applications of half of the Muslim women without the hijab, they did not give any response to 75 per cent of the Muslim women with headscarves.
Valentina Di Stasio, one of the researchers and a member of Utrecht University, said that the results “mostly show a lack of progress over time, with members of ethnic minorities still facing levels of discrimination today that are as high as they were decades ago.”
She emphasised the need to monitor its impact on policymaking and legislative mechanisms.
About the perception that it is “simply a preference for religion neutrality, instead of a bias against Muslims,” she stated that in a related study, no penalty was imposed for volunteer work at a Christian association, in contrast to a substantial penalty for volunteer work at a Muslim association.
She said another study conducted in France titled ‘Anti-Muslim discrimination in France: Evidence from a Field Experiment’ summarised that “religiosity was a premium for Christians and a penalty for Muslims.”
Recalling that “high levels of discrimination” against Muslims even exist in countries where people do not have to put personal photos on their CVs in job applications, such as the UK and Norway, she explained that this is based solely on the names of applicants.
“Wearing religious garments is part of one’s identity and can contribute to a positive sense of self. People who “whiten” their CVs by downplaying ethnic and religious cues do it at a high personal cost, reporting a lack of authenticity,” Di Stasio noted.
