Afro‐descendants in Peru: Do beauty and race matter in the labor market?

• Author: Gustavo Yamada,Francisco B. Galarza
• Date: 01 February 2019
• Published date: 01 February 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/rode.12530

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Afro‐descendants in Peru: Do beauty and race

matter in the labor market?

Francisco B. Galarza

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Gustavo Yamada

Universidad del Pacífico, Lima, Peru

Correspondence

Francisco B. Galarza, Universidad del

Pacífico, Department of Economics and

Research Center (CIUP), Av. Salaverry

2020, Jesús María, Lima, Peru.

Email: galarza_fb@up.edu.pe

Funding Information

This research was partially funded by the

Universidad del Pacífico's

Interdisciplinary Research Project (PII)

2014 and the Peruvian Ministry of

Culture.

Abstract

This is a first study about labor discrimination against

Afro‐descendants in Peru. We randomly assigned Afro‐

Peruvian and white surnames and photographs (subjec-

tively beautiful, homely looking, or not photos) to 3,828

fictitious résumés, sent for unskilled, technical, and pro-

fessional occupations. We find an unprecedented, sizeable

beauty premium in unskilled occupations (232.5 percent),

no effect of looks in technical occupations, and a beauty

penalty in professional occupations (–71.3 percent). Over-

all, whites receive 19.37 percent more callbacks than sim-

ilarly qualified Afro‐Peruvians; this racial discrimination

affects only Afro‐Peruvian females, and particularly those

employed in technical occupations. These results remain

unaltered when we restrict the sample to those markedly

“Afro”surnames. Our findings unveil different dynamics

of discrimination across job categories, which tend to be

overlooked by the existing literature.

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INTRODUCTION

African descendants in Latin America represent around 20 percent of the population and face a

disadvantaged situation, in virtually every socioeconomic indicator. They have more unmet basic

needs (and are poorer), attain lower schooling levels, and earn lower wages than the average citi-

zen (Stubbs & Reyes, 2006). In the case of Peru, according to official self‐identification statistics,

the Afro‐descendants represent 2 percent of the population and are less poor than the indigenous

population (Instituto Nacional de Estadística e Informática, 2016). In terms of labor market out-

comes, while recent evidence shows discrimination against indigenous (and in favor of whites)

(Galarza & Yamada, 2017), there is no rigorous evidence of discrimination against Afro‐descen-

dant Peruvians, aside from the individual cases that have been denounced and divulged in the local

media, which are extremely difficult to prove as a systematic practice.

DOI: 10.1111/rode.12530

Rev Dev Econ. 2019;23:211–230. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/rode © 2018 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

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In fact, legal complaints of discrimination under such circumstances, or court rulings on the

matter, are practically nonexistent. Is this absence because of a lack of interest in highlighting

another significant area that suffers from unequal opportunities in Peru? Is it, perhaps, a conse-

quence of the disadvantages faced from the outset by the affected groups, preventing them from

organizing and raising a more influential voice from within the bodies where political and legal

decisions are made in the country? Or does it have more to do with the statistical difficulties faced

in proving discrimination in any sphere, raising serious questions about the lack of evidence col-

lected up to this time? The most likely answer is that it is a mix of all of the foregoing factors.

This paper seeks to contribute to the statistical facet noted above. As such, our paper attempts

to overcome the usual statistical difficulties by conducting an experiment that documents a system-

atic scenario in which Afro‐Peruvians have less opportunity to access the labor market. We hope

our evidence helps to better inform the debate on public policies amid a growing consensus regard-

ing the need to ensure equal opportunities for progress and socioeconomic mobility for all Peru-

vians. Our findings may also be highly useful for judicial operators, especially for judges and

those responsible for administering justice, as an incentive for the use of nonlegal tools in the mea-

surement and testing of seemingly invisible forms of discrimination, such as those examined

below.

The topic of racial discrimination, and particularly that of discrimination against Afro‐descen-

dants, is a recurring one in the public discussion, although it has very rarely been systematically

analyzed in Peru and other regions of the world with a relatively significant presence of groups of

African origin. On the one hand, the vast majority of studies in the local sphere consist of valuable

qualitative analyses, whose results have nevertheless a limited power of inference with regard to

the general population (e.g., Callirgos, 1993; Portocarrero, 2007). In contrast, quantitative provide

an imperfect approximation to race, using data on ethnic self‐identification, as well as methods that

do not allow for the full identification of the existing discrimination (e.g., Benavides, Torero, &

Valdivia, 2006; Castro, Yamada, & Asmat, 2012; Montero and Yamada, 2012).

Why is a study of this kind important? First of all, because we need to identify the scope of

the problem as accurately as possible, using statistical data. Secondly, because by conducting this

study, we can address the problem more effectively (although, we acknowledge that it is difficult

to detect discrimination in all possible instances). For example, in this study we examine the first

stage of selection in the hiring process, but we did not address the subsequent stages of the pro-

cess, nor did we explore what happens inside the companies (a task recently undertaken by Kogan,

2014, using qualitative data).

Thus, this paper represents an initial systematic effort to quantify the magnitude of labor dis-

crimination against Afro‐descendants in Peru. We conducted a résumé audit study in order to

detect discrimination triggered by three variables: physical appearance, race and gender. Our results

provide evidence of a differential treatment based on looks and race, but not on gender. We find a

sizeable beauty premium in unskilled occupations, no effect of looks in technical occupations and

a large beauty penalty in professional occupations. We also find racial discrimination against Afro‐

Peruvians; interestingly, the magnitude of the racial gap (19.37 percent) is smaller than that

reported against indigenous Peruvians, which is 54 percent (Galarza & Yamada, 2017). Taken

together, our findings unveil different dynamics of discrimination, depending on job categories,

which are typically overlooked by the existing literature.

The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 reviews the related literature,

with a particular emphasis on studies that include physical appearance among the factors explain-

ing discrimination against Afro‐descendants. Section 3 presents the experimental design used in

this paper, Section 4 discusses our main results, and Section 5 concludes.

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