Hijab-wearing Muslim women face discrimination during job hunting, reveals study

According to a new study, female candidates who wear hijab (head scarf) received significantly less positive feedback from employers in the Netherlands and Germany. The discrimination against hijab-wearing Muslim women was highlighted in an academic article published by the European Sociological Review Journal.

Discrimination was generally seen in jobs that required engaging with clients and consumers in person.

Researchers discovered that in comparison to the Netherlands and Germany, Spain had less discrimination against veiled women.

In the Netherlands, approximately 70 per cent of job applications that included a photograph of an unveiled woman received positive feedback for jobs that required high customer contact. But only 35 per cent of applicants who were wearing hijab in their photographs received positive feedback.

“The high level of discrimination we found in the Netherlands, where the institutional context has traditionally been open to the accommodation of religious minority rights, is particularly surprising and points to the possibly stigmatising effect of recent policies geared towards the cultural assimilation of immigrants,” the research said.

The results of the field experiment in Germany were similar. While 53 per cent of non-hijab-wearing Muslim women received a positive response from employers, only about 25 per cent of veiled women received positive feedback.