How Do You Say Your Name? Difficult-To-Pronounce Names and Labor Market Outcomes

Abstract

We test for labor market discrimination based on an understudied characteristic: name fluency. Analysis of recent economics PhD job candidates indicates that name difficulty is negatively related to the probability of landing an academic or tenure track position and research productivity of initial institutional placement. Discrimination due to name fluency is also found using experimental data from prior audit studies. Within samples of African-Americans (Bertrand and Mullainathan, 2004) and ethnic immigrants (Oreopoulos, 2011), job applicants with less fluent names experience lower callback rates, and name complexity explains roughly between 10 and 50 percent of ethnic name penalties. The results are primarily driven by candidates with weaker resumes, suggesting that cognitive biases may contribute to the penalty of having a difficult-to-pronounce name.

Keywords: labor market discrimination, name pronunciation, job placement, economics PhD job market, audit studies

JEL Classification: A11, J01, J70, J44