The sociologist Javier G. Polavieja , professor at the CSIC and Director of the Laboratory on Discrimination and Inequality, explains that two experiments show the existence of “severe labor discrimination against Castilian job applicants” by Catalan companies between 2016 and 2018 . coinciding with the high point of the process .

The first is the GEMM project , a field experiment to detect employment discrimination in five European countries (Germany, Spain, Norway, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom) by sending fictitious resumes to real job vacancies.

The analysis includes some 3,000 job offers from Madrid, Catalonia, the Basque Country, Navarra, Valencia and the Balearic Islands and calculates the probability of a positive response by companies for three fictitious groups : Spanish applicants of European ancestry ( “Euro-descendants” ) ; Spanish applicants with Spanish parents and “Castilian” surnames ( “Castilian-descendants” ); and Spanish applicants descended from parents from the Maghreb, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East (“Africa-Maghreb-OM”).

In addition, all of them have work experience in Madrid and reside in this city when they apply for the job. However, when the offer corresponds to a community with its own language, the curriculum indicates that the candidate is originally from that community and knows the co-official language.

The report in question shows the following results:

• In Madrid, applicants of European descent and those of Castilian descent present very similar probabilities of a positive response, between 27% and 29% respectively, a minimal difference. Thus, “it is obvious that neither of these two groups is negatively discriminated against in Madrid,” according to Polavieja.
• But “in Catalonia the situation is different.” The result obtained by those of European descent is identical to that observed in Madrid, but the positive response rate for those of Castilian descent drops almost ten points, to 20%. “This is a significantly lower rate in statistical terms than what we observe for European descendants in Catalonia,” clarifies the sociologist.

“This means that, to obtain a positive response from Catalan employers, an applicant of Castilian descent , seeking employment from Madrid between 2016 and 2018, would have had to send 40% more applications than an identical applicant (who also looking for a job from Madrid), but descendant of European parents”. That is to say, Catalan companies discriminated against “Castilian” applicants in an obvious and clear way compared to other candidates.

In fact, Polavieja adds that this rate of discrimination would be very similar to that suffered by “African Americans in the United States when compared to curricularly identical Anglo-descended candidates.”

The most discriminated against in Catalonia, in any case, would be the descendants of Africa-Maghreb-OM, since they would have to send twice as many applications as the Euro-descendants to obtain a positive response. But, curiously, the discrimination suffered by “Castilians” in Catalonia is similar to that suffered by the group of African descendants in Madrid.

“In conclusion, these findings suggest that, between 2016 and 2018, in Catalonia there was significant discrimination against job applicants with Castilian surnames and postal residence in Madrid , despite the fact that their applications indicated Catalan origin and fluency in Catalan,” Polavieja explains. Furthermore, this contempt is only observed in Catalonia . In Madrid as well as in the Basque Country, Navarra, Valencia and the Balearic Islands, the “Castilians” obtain positive response rates almost identical to that of the “European-descendants.”

More discrimination in Gerona and Lérida

Added to this study is another, the CAT-H experiment , which, following the same scheme, also includes some 300 additional surveys of fictitious candidates with identical characteristics (work experience and residence in Madrid), but using recognisably Catalan names and surnames . The objective here was to know if the response was different between companies located in the most pro-independence provinces (Gerona and Lérida) and those in Barcelona and Tarragona, where separatist support was less.

This analysis yielded two great results:

• The rejection of the “Castilians” was similar in all the Catalan provinces
• But the positive response towards the “Catalan-descendants” was much higher in the north (Gerona and Lérida) , with 40%, compared to the south (Barcelona and Tarragona), with 29%.

In Gerona and Lérida, “job applicants with Castilian names and residence in Madrid would have to send twice as many job applications as applicants with identical CVs (including the Madrid postal address) and Catalan names, despite the fact that both report identical levels of linguistic competence, while in Barcelona-Tarragona they would only have to send 40% more”, clarifies the sociologist.

Conclusions

These findings show that “in the Catalonia of the process there was significant employment discrimination against job applicants with Castilian names and surnames (and postal residence in Madrid), despite the fact that their CVs indicated Catalan origin and fluency in Catalan.”

Furthermore, “this discrimination was high in Catalonia as a whole and could become extraordinarily high in the case of companies located in the regions with the greatest support for independence”, in reference to Gerona and Lérida.

And he concludes: “To our knowledge, these are the first estimators of employment discrimination for Spanish native populations reported from the social sciences . ” These two experiments show “the existence of social closure with clear – and worrying – effects on equal opportunities.”