Rabat – A recent study concluded that Hijabi (veiled) Muslims face significant discrimination when applying for jobs in the Netherlands, and Germany compared to non-hijabi women who are mostly treated like non-Muslim applicants.
According to the study, veiled Muslim women are less likely to receive callbacks from employers in the three European countries.
Published in the European Sociological Review, the study notably found that the average employer callback dropped by up to 52% for women who included a picture of themselves wearing a veil, revealing an underlying bias towards Muslim women.
Of the three countries mentioned in the report, the Netherlands leads the way in terms of discrimination against veiled women. 52% of applications from veiled women did not receive a callback from Dutch employers, while Germany came in second with a 48% rejection rate.
In Spain, the rate was surprisingly lower at 21%, but the researchers noted that the figure is not statistically significant in the context of their study. For the researchers, the low rejection rate in Spain reflects the country’s highly competitive labor market amid high unemployment.
Interestingly, unveiled Muslim women had the same low rejection rate as non-Muslim applicants, and the study argued that this buttressed the theory that employers in the Netherlands and Germany are biased against veiled or hijabi women.
In the case of Germany and the Netherlands, veiled Muslim women received fewer callbacks from employers than native majority women, while unveiled Muslim women received the same level of rejection rates as native non-Muslim applicants.
Data from Germany and the Netherland yielded “strong evidence of employer discrimination against veiled Muslim women,” the research showed, adding. that unveiled Muslim women were not subject to the same type of discrimination.
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