Airbnb hosts discriminate against African-Americans, study shows
Airbnb hosts discriminate against African-Americans, study shows
Written By Chad Merda Posted: 12/11/2015, 02:10pm
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Americans have said that racism is one of the biggest problems facing the country, and a new study shows that it’s also a problem facing home-sharing platform Airbnb.
The study, conducted by the Harvard Business School, found that people with names that were perceived to be African-American had a 16 percent lower acceptance rate than those with names that were perceived to be white.
The discrimination is far reaching, as researchers found that African-Americans also were discriminating against their own race, while both males and females were just as likely to discriminate.
Researchers conducted the study by creating 20 Airbnb accounts without pictures. They all were identical, except for the name, and they then sent approximately 6,400 messages in Baltimore, Dallas, Los Angeles, St. Louis and Washington D.C. between July 7 – July 30, 2015.
They then tracked the rejections and approvals for each name.
“Overall, we find widespread discrimination against African-American guests,” researchers Benjamin Edelman, Michael Luca and Dan Svirsky wrote in their report. “(The) roughly 16 percent penalty for African-American guests is particularly noteworthy when compared to the discrimination-free setting of competing short-term accommodation platforms such as Expedia. The penalty is consistent with the racial gap found in contexts ranging from labor markets to online lending to classified ads to taxicabs.”
In this case, discrimination trumps generating revenue.
“Discrimination is costly for hosts who indulge in it: hosts who reject African-American guests are able to find a replacement guest only 35 percent of the time,” they wrote.
Airbnb acknowledged the problem to MarketWatch and said they are communicating with the authors of the study to “reduce potential discrimination.”
The authors pointed out an obvious way to reduce discrimination: Remove users’ pictures and names, and rely on reviews and ratings instead.
You can now add discrimination to other Airbnb problems, such as porn shoots and shady roommates renting out places when they shouldn’t.
Airbnb hosts discriminate against African-Americans, study shows
Written By Chad Merda Posted: 12/11/2015, 02:10pm
Embed from Getty Images
Americans have said that racism is one of the biggest problems facing the country, and a new study shows that it’s also a problem facing home-sharing platform Airbnb.
The study, conducted by the Harvard Business School, found that people with names that were perceived to be African-American had a 16 percent lower acceptance rate than those with names that were perceived to be white.
The discrimination is far reaching, as researchers found that African-Americans also were discriminating against their own race, while both males and females were just as likely to discriminate.
Researchers conducted the study by creating 20 Airbnb accounts without pictures. They all were identical, except for the name, and they then sent approximately 6,400 messages in Baltimore, Dallas, Los Angeles, St. Louis and Washington D.C. between July 7 – July 30, 2015.
They then tracked the rejections and approvals for each name.
“Overall, we find widespread discrimination against African-American guests,” researchers Benjamin Edelman, Michael Luca and Dan Svirsky wrote in their report. “(The) roughly 16 percent penalty for African-American guests is particularly noteworthy when compared to the discrimination-free setting of competing short-term accommodation platforms such as Expedia. The penalty is consistent with the racial gap found in contexts ranging from labor markets to online lending to classified ads to taxicabs.”
In this case, discrimination trumps generating revenue.
“Discrimination is costly for hosts who indulge in it: hosts who reject African-American guests are able to find a replacement guest only 35 percent of the time,” they wrote.
Airbnb acknowledged the problem to MarketWatch and said they are communicating with the authors of the study to “reduce potential discrimination.”
The authors pointed out an obvious way to reduce discrimination: Remove users’ pictures and names, and rely on reviews and ratings instead.
You can now add discrimination to other Airbnb problems, such as porn shoots and shady roommates renting out places when they shouldn’t.
