title: First depressed, then discriminated against?
abstract: Each year a substantial share of the European population suffers from major depression. This mental illness may affect individuals' later life outcomes indirectly by the stigma it inflicts. The present study assesses hiring discrimination based on disclosed depression. To this end, between May 2015 and July 2015, we sent out 288 trios of job applications from fictitious candidates to real vacancies in Belgium. Within each trio, one candidate claimed to have become unemployed only recently, whereas the other two candidates revealed former depression or no reason at all for their unemployment during a full year. Disclosing a year of inactivity due to former depression decreases the probability of getting a job interview invitation by about 34% when compared with candidates who just became unemployed, but the stigma effect of a year of depression is not significantly higher than the stigma effect of a year of unexplained unemployment. In addition, we found that these stigmas of depression and unemployment were driven by our male trios of fictitious candidates. As a consequence, our results are in favour of further research on gender heterogeneity in the stigma of depression and other health impairments.
authors.affiliation: Sherppa-Study Hive for Economic Research and Public Policy Analysis, Ghent University, Sint-Pietersplein 6, B-9000 Ghent, Belgium; Research Foundation - Flanders, Egmontstraat 5, B-1000 Brussels, Belgium; Department of Sociology, University of Antwerp, Sint-Jacobsstraat 2, B-2000 Antwerp, Belgium; IRES-Institut de Recherches Économiques et Sociales, Université catholique de Louvain, 3 Place Montesquieu, B-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium; IZA-Institute for the Study of Labor, Schaumburg-Lippe-Straße 5-9, D-53113 Bonn, Germany. Electronic address: Stijn.Baert@UGent.be.
authors.forename: Stijn
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Baert
authors.affiliation: Sherppa-Study Hive for Economic Research and Public Policy Analysis, Ghent University, Sint-Pietersplein 6, B-9000 Ghent, Belgium.
authors.forename: Sarah
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: De Visschere
authors.affiliation: Sherppa-Study Hive for Economic Research and Public Policy Analysis, Ghent University, Sint-Pietersplein 6, B-9000 Ghent, Belgium; Itinera, Hertogsstraat 31, B-1000 Brussels, Belgium.
authors.forename: Koen
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Schoors
authors.affiliation: Sherppa-Study Hive for Economic Research and Public Policy Analysis, Ghent University, Sint-Pietersplein 6, B-9000 Ghent, Belgium.
authors.forename: Désirée
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Vandenberghe
authors.affiliation: Sherppa-Study Hive for Economic Research and Public Policy Analysis, Ghent University, Sint-Pietersplein 6, B-9000 Ghent, Belgium.
authors.forename: Eddy
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Omey
mesh_terms: D001530:Belgium; D003865:Major Depressive Disorder / Q000150:complications* / Q000523:psychology*; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological; D004651:Employment / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D007586:Job Application; D010560:Personnel Selection / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012737:Sex Factors; D057545:Social Stigma
keywords: Belgium; Depression; Field experiments; Health; Hiring discrimination