FRD: Family Responsibility Discrimination
How recruiters on LinkedIn are discriminating against job seekers with families.
According to an article, job seekers are being discriminated against based on the prevalence of family life and responsibility on their LinkedIn profiles. Research shows that “…external job candidates are less likely to even be considered for a position if their LinkedIn profiles contain information indicative of family responsibilities…”. Employers are unfairly making their decisions about whether or not to hire these people without acknowledging skills or experience first.
Another term mentioned in the article was “caregiver bias” which refers to “…perceived incongruity between the communal traits that are stereotypically ascribed to caregivers…” and the commonly-known and expected strains that family life can have on mother figures. The decision-making process for employers is more susceptible to stereotype-driven thinking because there is typically limited information known about a candidate at the beginning stages of an application. “Public employees with family responsibilities also tend to be passed over for desirable assignments and opportunities or for promotions…” according to an article.
During a study, participants were asked to assess numerous (fake) job candidates’ LinkedIn profiles and recognize all good and bad aspects of the profile in relation to the sample job posting. All of the information found on the profiles was identical except for the candidates’ names, profile pictures, and use of gender pronouns. Findings from this study included the fact that 42.7% of participants (“employers”) openly admitted to using to FR (family responsibility) information to evaluate candidates.
In an effort to solve this issue it has been suggested to any job seeker on LinkedIn to not include any information that is suggestive of parental responsibility. Paola Peralta is writer for Benefit News and wrote an article on LinkedIn’s new feature that is working to eliminate discrimination based on race or ethnicity. The feature allows recruiters to “hide” photos and names on job seekers’ profiles, replacing photos with avatars and names with four randomly generated letters. This is to ensure that the candidate will only be assessed based on skills and experience found on the profile. However, this is not the issue at hand. The issue is FRD. A possible way of eradicating the problem would be to allow recruiters to also hide words such as family, kids, children, and any other related terms and therefore hide any posts on the job seeker’s account that could inhibit their chances of being considered for a position.
There are also instances where people get hired and are discriminated against during their employment. “One way to eliminate marital or familial status discrimination from employee benefits programs is to implement “cafeteria”-style benefits programs.” In these programs, employees are all given the same amount of credits to be used towards benefits that each employee can pick from based on their personal and familial needs.
After assessing possible solutions to FRD, it’s evident that companies are aware of the issue and the ways they can be more fair towards people with families. It’s astounding that this is such a prevalent problem but it can be turned around.
