Do Updates of Group-Level and Individual-Level Information of Ethnic Minority Applicants Mitigate Statistical Discrimination in Hiring?

Labor market discrimination against ethnic minority applicants remains persistent despite extensive research and policy interventions. While social scientists have thoroughly examined statistical discrimination-wherein employers rely on group-level information to infer candidates' future productivity due to limited individual information in resumes-fundamental questions remain unanswered regarding the relative impact of different information types. Specifically, it remains unclear whether employers are more responsive to group-level or individual-level information updates in their hiring decisions. Through a two-stage survey experiment with hiring human resources (HR) professionals at Japanese companies, this study examines how updating different types of information affects hiring discrimination. The experiment randomly updated group-level information about ethnic minority workers' productivity (specifically, that ethnic majority and minority workers are equally productive) and provided additional individual-level applicant information. Results demonstrate that while additional individual-level information completely eliminates ethnic discrimination, updating group-level information fails to reduce discriminatory practices. Moreover, group-level information updates actually nullify the positive effects of individual-level information. These findings suggest that HR professionals' initially low expectations of minority applicants can be easily overcome through additional individual information. However, group-level information updates raise baseline expectations and the same individual-level information becomes insufficient to exceed these elevated thresholds.