Employment discrimination against transgender women in England
Abstract
Purpose
The study aimed to assess whether transgender women, who were students at a university in London, England, faced hiring discrimination when seeking employment.
Design/methodology/approach
Three comparable university classmates—a cisgender woman, a cisgender man and a transgender woman—studying Engineering applied to the same job openings. Similarly, another set of three university classmates—a cisgender woman, a cisgender man and a transgender woman—studying Social Work applied to the same job openings. The degree of discrimination was quantified by calculating the difference in the number of interview invitations received by each group.
Findings
When three comparable university classmates apply for the same job openings, the rate of interview invitations differs based on gender identity. For cisgender women, the invitation rate is 31.3%, while for cisgender men, it stands at 35.1%. However, for transgender women, the rate drops significantly to 10.4%. Additionally, transgender women face further challenges in male-dominated sectors (STEM), where their chance of being invited for a job interview is even lower compared to those in female-dominated sectors, with a reduction of 8.7 percentage points. The study also reveals that firms with written equality policies on gender identity diversity show a 25.7 percentage point increase in invitation rates for transgender women compared to firms without such policies. Furthermore, the research highlights that negative beliefs among job recruiters regarding various aspects of transgender women, including their gender identity status, disclosure, job performance, vocational relationships and turnover, contribute to their exclusion from job interviews. Moreover, for transgender women who do receive interview invitations, these tend to be for lower-paid jobs compared to those received by cisgender women (by 20%) and cisgender men (by 21.3%). This wage sorting into lower-paid vacancies suggests a penalty in terms of lower returns on education, which could drive wage and income differences.
Practical implications
Transgender women received a higher number of job interview invitations when firms had written equality policies on gender identity diversity. This outcome can help policymakers identify actions to reduce the exclusion of transgender people from the labour market.
Originality/value
The study gathers information from job recruiters to quantify the roots of hiring discrimination against transgender women. It also enables an examination of whether workplaces' written equality policies on gender identity diversity are related to transgender women’s invitations to job interviews.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the Editor-in-Chief, Adrian Ziderman, and the Associate Editor, Thomas Lange, for their comments and recommendations. The suggestions provided by the two anonymous reviewers have been immensely helpful. I appreciate the study’s participants and those who facilitated the research and data gathering. Valuable insights during the design of this study were offered by members of the Centre for Inclusive Societies and Economies at Anglia Ruskin University and Pembroke College at the University of Cambridge. I am also grateful for the knowledge transfer and assistance from the Pembroke College Circle at the University of Cambridge. The support from the Meander Research Hub is greatly appreciated.
Citation
Drydakis, N. (2024), "Employment discrimination against transgender women in England", International Journal of Manpower, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJM-09-2023-0528
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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