Fondazione Rodolfo Debenedetti: Unexplored Dimensions of Discrimination in Europe: Religion, Homosexuality and Physical Appearance

Let us attempt to investigate the effects of anti-discrimination (defined by the MIPEX in Section 4) and labor-market policies on the negative relationship between being Muslim and their labor-market outcomes...Turning our attention to anti-discrimination policy effects, one can see that the anti-discrimination policy index does not seem to be a crucial factor in shaping employment prospects of Muslims. However, as explained in Section 4, the anti-discrimination policies implemented in the different countries vary widely. We thus attempt to shed some light on the anti-discrimination policy areas which appear to be more effective in affecting the labor-market outcomes o fMuslims. Table 8 shows a negative coffecient only for the area "definition and concepts",whereas the "enforcement mechanisms" and "equality policies" show positive and statistically significant effects in terms of employment prospects...we find that more favorable anti-discrimination policies are associated with better employment prospects for obese individuals and worse employment prospects of underweight individuals...
Using the available survey data for Europe,we first provide cross country results about the labor-market outcomes of people with different religions, homosexuals and individuals with specific outlooks. We find that Muslims, homosexuals, obese and underweight individuals are in general penalized in the labor market, with interesting differences between males and females and between Northern and Southern Europe. Strong enforcement mechanisms and better equality policies seem to be the more beneficial anti-discrimination policies that can reduce these penalties. Notably, these are the anti-discrimination policy areas where the different European countries differ the most and where Europe on average perform worst...Read more