Hiring People-Like-Yourself: A Representation of Discrimination on the Job Market

Abstract

This paper offers a new representation of discrimination on the job market based on the most recent findings in the socio-psychological academic literature about human behavior. Put it simply, it is assumed that the agents prefer working with people like themselves. This affinity principle is modeled through a distance between an individual (the candidate for a job) and the staff of the firm. Contrary to the classical view according to which discrimination results from asymmetric information, this new model provides a rationale for the presence of discriminative attitudes on the job market even when full information is available on the skill levels of all candidates for a working position.

Keywords: discrimination, affinity, skill

JEL Classification: J71, J70