Basic study on racism – Fabienne gets the apartment sooner than Shpresa – and the job | The first basic study on structural racism in Switzerland shows: It is widespread – right into the middle of our society (German)

32 comments

  5. I’m going to be hated for this comment but, as a southern European with a very southern European surname, I’ve never felt discriminated in the least, either when looking for appartments or jobs or any situation. So I wonder, to what extent is discrimination justified? It’s like when ticket controllers get heat for directly checking people of a certain look, and they do it because statistically these people are more likely to not be in possession of a valid ticket. Insurances discriminate all the time to judge the risk of a person, eg for age or past illnesses running in the family, none of which are elements that a person can control, and this is not an issue at all. So what if lanlords also discriminate based on an element that a person can’t control because of past statistical experience? It just sucks for the person, but it doesn’t mean it’s wrong.

  7. Why would a landlord rent to someone from his country, who has lived there all his life vs. someone who might have come yesterday and go away the next day? It’s a real mistery…

  9. I once had to look for a new tenant for a flat in Zurich because I left the contract earlier. I had a lot of enquiries (as expected). I admit that I preferred German names there in the invitations for a viewing. My prejudice was that with foreign names there was an increased chance of communication problems at the viewing. I also gave German names a better chance of having a spotless reputation. At the time, I was simply interested in getting rid of the flat quickly. Nowadays, I have to question my behaviour at the time.

  10. The only thing i ask myself nobody has so much upvotes like this guy no matter at what time he is posting is he bot voting himself? +66 votes after 2hrs

  11. I don’t think it is racism. Here is my theory: I’d prefer german names, because i’ve experienced a lot of bad shit from people from albania, serbia etc. Misbehaving in school, bullying, the highest criminial-rate, general bad reputation for all sort of things. THAT IS NOT RACISM. THESE ARE FACTS.

    It’s not the color of their skin or their language – its their actions that makes the difference.

    And do this study in other countries! People generally prefer people from their own Country!!! Its normal!!

  13. I read the study, bit didn’t have the time to examine all the literature cited. The study itself points out, that most studies have issues in terms of reproducibility. If that is the case, the entire study has a very, very limited relevance.
    I’ll go over the cited literature to find a possible bias and approve the lack of reproducibility and report back.

  14. Very interesting – and unfortunately as long as people continue to pass on their racist values to their kids it will persist. Though it will reduce as older folks die out, there will also be a feeling that a foreign name means more likely to have a foreign culture (even with a Swiss passport) which will deter those that are racist from engaging, even if they don’t make the decision consciously.

    Interesting tidbit – I have a friend who is half-Swiss, half-Japanese from TG (born and raised) who almost exclusively uses his very foreign middle name instead of his German-langauage first name (his last name is, however, also German-language). He is perhaps the most Swiss guy I know – very Bünzli vibes. He says he grew up with a few kids that were a racist about the way he looks, but overall nothing systematic or traumatising (and in a small commune in TG that’s saying something). He has very conservative views and honestly feels he has experienced less racism from SVP members versus self-proclaimed progressives that were mean to him at school.

    I don’t mean anything by that, except that I’ve always found him to be an interesting lad.

  15. As someone working in customer service where i get to see a lot of different apartements i can say that more apartements look “uncared” for if the name under the doorbell sounds “foreign”

    I believe that because of this some landlords might prefer some more bünzli names.

    Don’t take me wrong on this though this is just from my 6+ years experience in customer service and it’s just one of the observations that i made. So absolutely not factual.

    Regarding racism in switzerland … A LOT of age 40-50+ people are at least a bit racist. They are mostly just very passive with it. Most wouldn’t be racist straight to the other persons face but behind their back ?

    Yet again these are just my observations. I just thought i might share them here. Feel free to share your observations. I’m interested to hear them.

  16. call me a racist, but i better hope it is that way. it cant be that there are jobless native swiss people and foreigners getting jobs first. looking at your motherland first, the one who raised it, deserve a job. and yes, before those 10-20 years living here and then going home again.

    same on apartments

  18. “Studies have shown” – they have shown that some names are preferred and some names are not preferred. That does not proof structural racism and saying so is unscientific.

    Just expand the experiment: add to the exact same text and different name photos of them. A young, blazing hot Sphresa in business clothes and a homeless, old poor and undernourished Fabienne.

    Guess who would get the flat or job then? And what you would say then?

  19. Given that the only difference is name and nationality it is difficult to speak of racism. Xenophobia would be more accurate.

    But don’t let reality get in the way. Or maybe read the article? Up to you.

    I wouldn’t go to work in say, Japan, without adapting my name to the local customs. But to each their own.

  21. It would be best for people who haven’t encountered prejudice in the areas of flat and job search in this country to not comment at all than to be blatantly insensitive and outright disrespectful towards those who actually have. The issue of standardizing and normalizing racism in this country just turns out to be like the institutionalized mandatory healthcare coverage which from an ethical standpoint can be fairly viewed as extortionate but has unfortunately become widely and wrongfully accepted within society due to factors such as greed, profitability for the engaged stakeholders and unjust abuse of the system by those who feel it’s their sole entitlement to do so without concern for the overall financial consequences and burdens. People through years of social conditioning like to irrationally defend and stick to such cruel behaviors because it usually challenges their worldview and brings out weaknesses in them which is something the Swiss I perceive in general are just too comfortable to address or even come to grips with, so at best the issue of racism and prejudice is going to remain nothing but a game of pretense, self righteousness and ignorance of it’s existence within Swiss society at large.

  22. Jobs are a fiddly subject because of the equality of chances (but not of outcome).But about the renting, the owner have their prerequisites that also include age. Yet we don’t call them ageist because they discriminate young people (same for jobs). They might find that statistically, they have less issues with older local people agains joung forein ones.

    My analogy would be similar to dating, you search for similarities in customs, behavior and interests. I find harder to build a bond with someone not having the same native language. Making a parallel with the work space, it is factualy harder to collaborate and exchange with different work ethics and interests.

    Is it discrimination, racism or just preferences ?It goes the same for the never ending fight for equality between men and women…

    I certainly put myself in the “I’m not racist, but” category. Because if course I would like to reduce the likeliness of issues because someone is not used to local non-written rules and misunderstanding caused by a traduction.Notice that here I’m not talking about “statistically, x or y ethnicity causes more behavioral problems”.

    Bottom line : I think we (at least me) love to avoid difficulties, and that is not (always, hopefully) linked to prejudice or conscious racism.

    [EDIT] Just because I have preferences doesn’t mean I literally HATE everyone else. But in this modern society, it is difficult for any caucasian straight cisgender man to have that without being labelled homophobic, transphobic, misogynist or racist.
    And don’t get me started about religions, you can’t be racist towards religion because it is a belief. And believes can, must and should be challenged (or critisized !). There is no better one, just ideas and opinions.

  24. last time i checked, albanian people counted as white, so the only reason they call this racism and not what it actually is: xenophobia, is probably for activist reasons. In my opinion this makes their whole study a lot less trustworthy, and the ironiy is that i actually think there is a lot of xenophobia. (in all of europe btw, including switzerland)

    that being said, i want them to do the same experiment not with appartments and men and women, i also already call that its way easier for women to get the apartment

  25. The quality of this sociological study can already be seen in the careless way the authors handle the term “racism”. Racist theory implies the existence of inferior and superior races, which is genetically determined and innate. It is unlikely that Swiss employers and landlords are guided by concepts of “racial purity” when hiring or renting an apartment. Moreover, in such cases it would be more appropriate to compare the Europoid and Negro races than the Swiss and Albanians. So, in the extreme case we can talk about xenophobia as such, or its particular manifestation – migrant-phobia. But this is also not a completely honest position, because locals will always and everywhere be a priority, because social relations, such as hiring or renting, are built on certain social points, based on which you can determine the expected level of trust and comfort in this interaction, people from the same culture, religion, language environment are always more comfortable and more trustworthy. This is why Albanians socialize in the Albanian diaspora, Africans in the African, Arabs in the Arab, and Swiss in the Swiss community. In the second or third generation, these differences are erased. But Switzerland wasn’t created as an emigrant civilization like the United States, for example, the mass emigration to Switzerland is a fairly new phenomenon that began in the 1990s. Therefore, it is natural and has nothing to do with racism in principle.

    So the “study” in no way tells us about the “problem of racism,” but only proves what doesn’t need to be proved: the principle of the convergence of cultures. Gosh, they compared Swiss and Albanians, but they didn’t compare different groups of immigrants with each other – Albanians and Western Europeans, Western Europeans and Eastern Europeans, and so on, to verify or prove the arguments of their study in any way. And these people go to universities and get paid for this “research”. That’s the real and only problem here.

  27. And it is a pity that it is like this. Switzerland is a beautiful country, it prides itself on its low crime rate, its lack of violence, the model behaviour of its citizens. It describes itself as neutral and will never get involved in wars. Yet still, when you look inside, you find that its only a great club if you are the right kind of member.

    For people who respond with “yeah but other countries are as well” Im afraid not. The biggest indicator of racism here isnt (I suspect) these numerous studies, but simply the fact that the largest political party is openly racist. This is the party people – here in this country – vote as the most popular party. it speaks for the people. No level of whataboutism can deflect from this unfortunate statistic. If this place wasn’t racist the SVP would not be the biggest party, fairly straightforward.

    Add to this these mystery shopper style surveys which confirm from the required opposite angle that the racism exists and you have the data you need, but dont want.

    It is such a pity, as Switzerland is a beautiful country, but for all the pride and national identity in being neutral and not getting involved in any international conflicts, perhaps it would be preferable to have a non neutral country that at least had equality amongst its citizens.

  28. And to think this country has so many international organizations yet the locals refuse to learn a thing or two about other cultures lol. I get the immigration topic is hot, jobs are being taken by the immigrants, blah, blah, blah, but who’s supposed to do those jobs then? Old people? I do understand the conservatives being afraid of other religions and customs, I get this but you know what? Talk about it!

    But also, the left people need to understand the right people to a certain extent, both parties need to compromise otherwise it will start to look like the US.

  31. That’s our primitive brain winning. You not my tribe, you not welcome. Ugh. Needs quite a bit of effort to overcome that. Wish it were easier, would make a lot of things easier.

  32. I’ll give my 2 cents here as someone from Turkish origins and who graduated from ETHZ in Computer Science / work as a software engineer in big pharma.

    It took me and my partner more than 90 applications to even get CONSIDERED for an apartment. We tried all price ranges from small 1 bedroom apartments to 4 bedroom apartments and despite us clearly having the financial means – earning more than 200k collectively , speaking the local language, have been living in the city for 9 years we failed to find anything for 6 months straight.

    It was especially frustrating explaining the situation to the colleagues at work that never encountered anything even remotely close to this. I lived from temporary accomodation to another for quite a while and I just couldn’t believe that after all these years, all the efforts to integrate and all the love I have for Switzerland as a whole I find myself denied the most basic of rights – housing…

    I also tried the “bouche à oreille” way but even when I was the sole candidate to retake the lease I would just be denied at the end of the process.

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