Do You Hear What I Hear? Do You See What I See?

Aha!  Now that Christmas carol is an earworm for you!  (Although that was not my true intent for this post.) 

Historically I have written about linguistic profiling (when we profile folks not from what we see but by how they sound).  Now it is time to share with you the latest (and for our industry, not-so-greatest) issue of profiling which I saw coming (ahem) – name profiling through email.

A recently published paper (footnote credits at the end of this post) comes to its conclusion based on statistics and algorithms (someday I must learn what an algorithm is; is that, like, when Al Gore invented the internet?).  That conclusion is that the issue of name-profiling in the context of race (black and white) goes beyond simply ignoring the emails from those perceived to be black.  Here’s the shorthand version of the 24 pages including tables and detailed analysis: Test emails inquiring about renting were sent (same day, same time, to same Craigslist posting, similar inquiry) using “black names” and “white names” culled from the Massachusetts birth certificate data from 1974 to 1979 (thus the “prospect” would be 30+ years of age).  The names had a statistically high likelihood of being associated with just one race.  The first names used to represent white prospects were Brad, Brendan, Brett, Matthew, Neil, Geoffrey, Todd, Greg and Jay.  The names used as to African-American home-seekers were Darnell, Hakim, Jamal, Jermaine, Kareem, Leroy, Rasheed, Tremayne and Tyrone.  The same process was used to “assign” last names to the fictional prospects as well.

Here is the conclusion: We find that landlords favor whites by responding quicker, writing e-mails that are longer, and using more positive language when replying to inquiries about rental housing. On balance, the keyword searches show that landlords choose to discriminate by encouraging white tenants through positive language instead of discouraging African American tenants through negative language.

Here is my comment:  Ouch.

Here is the credit:  “Subtle Discrimination in the Rental Housing Market: Evidence from E-mail Correspondence with Landlords” - Accepted for Publication in Journal of Housing Economics as of 9/20/2011

Andrew Hanson

Department of Economics, Georgia State University

P.O. Box 3992

Atlanta, GA30302

ahanson@gsu.edu

Zackary Hawley

Department of Economics, Georgia State University

P.O. Box 3992

Atlanta, GA30302

ecozbhx@langate.gsu.edu

Aryn Taylor

Department of Economics, Ohio Wesleyan University

61 S. Sandusky St

Delaware, OH 43015

amtaylor@owu.edu