{"id":2137,"date":"2015-04-21T21:50:34","date_gmt":"2015-04-21T20:50:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/?p=2137"},"modified":"2015-04-21T21:50:34","modified_gmt":"2015-04-21T20:50:34","slug":"expats-vs-immigrants-how-much-do-we-discriminate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/2015\/04\/21\/expats-vs-immigrants-how-much-do-we-discriminate\/","title":{"rendered":"Expats vs. Immigrants: (How Much) Do We Discriminate?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"women_discrimination\"<\/a>On the surface it seems that discrimination based on race, gender and sexual orientation is fading into the past. For example, the times of separated public transport, schools and eating establishments based on race, which were part of a philosophy of \u2018separate but equal\u2019 in the US, are long gone. Instead, today is about equality and collaboration. Indeed, the EU motto says \u2018United in diversity\u2019, the election of president Obama in the US served as a historic victory against racism, gender equality is a hot topic actively dealt with in education and business<\/a> settings, and even the world of sports chimes in by launching campaigns against discrimination <\/strong>(e.g. FIFA). Naturally we have come a long way and, by and at large, it seems as if discrimination<\/strong> is a thing of the past.<\/p>\n

Yet, a closer look reveals that we might have conquered just the tip of the iceberg, while substantial discrimination<\/strong> continues to work \u2018undercover\u2019.<\/p>\n

A case in point is the recent incidents<\/a> of deaths of African-Americans at the hands of US police. Although the exact causes of these incidents and the presence of racial discrimination<\/strong>, as a major factor, can be debatable in these cases, there seems to be enough scientific evidence to support this rather unpleasant assumption. Specifically, Sendhil Mullainathan, a professor of economics at Harvard, conducted a study<\/a> that showed clear effects of racial discrimination<\/strong> in selection and recruitment. The study results suggest that when controlling for all other effects, resumes with \u2018white\u2019 names (e.g. Greg) were chosen for a callback roughly twice more likely than the same resumes with African-American names (e.g. Jamal). Moreover, in the article<\/a> she wrote for The New York Times, Sendhil presents a short overview of other similar findings, which all indicate widespread discrimination<\/strong> in our decisions, evaluations and actions.<\/p>\n

Are these concerns also reflected in the field of global mobility?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

A recent article<\/a> in The Guardian suggests so. What the author implies is that there are signs of racial discrimination<\/strong> in the way we talk about and approach human migration<\/strong>, making a fairly clear distinction between people we call expats<\/strong> and people we call immigrants<\/strong>. Following the classic expatriate prototype of a middle-class, skilled, usually white person, the article argues that the term is indeed reserved \u2018exclusively for western white people going to work abroad\u2019. These are migrant workers considered in need and useful in the host country. On the contrary, the majority of problems seem to come from immigrants<\/strong>, a term associated with a low skill level, less developed country of origin, and non-Western roots. The same notion is also highlighted in the example of international cities such as Hong Kong, where, according to the author<\/a>, foreigners can be called expats<\/strong> or immigrants <\/strong>depending on their social class, country of origin and economic status. The implicit associations with the two terms are well depicted also in the graphic analysis<\/a> of the main adjectives, which tend to be used in close conjunction with the terms \u2018expat\u2019 and \u2018immigrant\u2019 in the Internet. According to the analysis carried out by a Ph.D. student of Applied Linguistics at Georgia State University, the discrimination bias seems quite evident.<\/p>\n

Putting it into practical terms, these discrimination biases show in a lack of promotion of minorities to international assignments, biased assignee selection processes, lack of efforts and policies for supporting diversity in multinational organizations, negative attitudes towards newcomers, and integration problems.<\/p>\n

How prevalent are our prejudices and the discrimination based on them?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

According to Sendhil Mullainathan, discrimination<\/strong> is not necessarily a sign of conscious prejudice. In other words, discrimination<\/strong> can result from unconscious attitudes, prejudices and cognitive bias. According to Nobel Prize winning research by Daniel Kahneman<\/a> and Amos Tversky, prejudices form part of our fast thinking system, which does not require much mental effort, works on autopilot and, most importantly, looks for shortcuts. Here is where potentially unfavorable generalizations and associations are developed; here is where the decision to hire a white over a non-white person is influenced by unconscious attitudes towards different races.<\/p>\n

Any solutions?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Unfortunately, we cannot switch off the fast thinking system in our brain and, hence, we are stuck with the \u2013 often tempting \u2013 option of using our automatic pilot. Fortunately, though, we can also switch to manual, or the slow thinking system of our brain. Slow thinking does require time and effort, but it is the only way we can control the influences of our unconscious minds on our decisions and actions. Plainly speaking, the takeaway I propose is: think after you assume you have already thought!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the surface it seems that discrimination based on race, gender and sexual orientation is fading into the past. For example, the times of separated public transport, schools and eating establishments based on race, which were part of a philosophy of \u2018separate but equal\u2019 in the US, are long gone. Instead, today is about equality […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":345,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18330],"tags":[25692,82038,89391,72701,89390],"class_list":["post-2137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-views-and-news-about-expatriates","tag-discrimination","tag-expats","tag-human-migration","tag-immigrants","tag-racial-discrimination","megacategoria-mc-leadership-and-people-management"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/345"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2137"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2137\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2143,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2137\/revisions\/2143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}