Explore different opinions about the grounds of workplace discrimination, such as belief / religion versus disability. Hiring, working together and the value of anti-discriminatory laws are considered. Throughout Irish attitudes and opinions are compared to our fellow European countries. Attitudes to working with those of different belief systems are compared. Despite broad support and comfort working with people of different belief systems, the data suggests that Muslims may be more likely to experience discrimination in Europe.
A word of caution: As gay Irish Travellers and white European Muslim women will tell you, when it comes to ethnicity, religion, and ‘race’, there are no hard boundaries. Identities intertwine. You hold multiple identities: There are various groups to which you feel some kinship, some sense of belonging. We all identify with, and are assigned by others to, multiple groups unconsciously and consciously. Only some of these groups are readily visible.
European Opinions About Discrimination in Hiring
Eurostat indicates that people believe workplace discrimination to be widespread. Overall, whether work-related or not, discrimination is generally believed to be increasing, the one exception to this is religious discrimination which is believed to be down by 5 percent. Age (too young or too old), presentation/appearance, and disability top the list of 15 disadvantages in hiring. While hiring discrimination based on beliefs or religious affiliation is seen as less pervasive down from 28% (in 2019), still 16% of Europeans in 2023 believed religion to be a disadvantage albeit placed 14 out of 15 factors.
(Graph from Eurobarometer – 26,399 interviews across the EU27 including 1,016 from Ireland)
Opinions About Grounds of Discrimination in Hiring Compared – How Ireland is Different
Across Europe (above), ‘address’ is seen as the least likely grounds for disadvantage when looking for work (placed 15th). Irish people, however, rate ‘address’ as a much larger barrier with almost a third of people, 29%, indicating address as a likely ground for this discrimination. This moves ‘address’ up to 9th place in Ireland along side ‘gender / sex’ (also 29%).
For both Ireland, and as we saw above, for Europe, ‘belief / religion’ are seen as less likely to be disadvantageous. There has been dramatic changes in belief systems in Ireland over decades (with Roman Catholicism a core but decreasing influence on Ireland’s industrial workplace gap).
The other main differences in grounds for discrimination between Ireland and Europe relate to disability and Travellers. Irish people are less likely to consider disability as a grounds for discrimination pushing discrimination down 2 places (placed 6th versus the European 4th). Irish people are more likely to indicate ‘being Roma’ as ground for hiring discrimination up 2 places (at 3rd versus Europe’s 5th). (Ethnic identifiers for Roma versus Travellers, an Irish ethnic group, are lacking and settled people are often unfamiliar with the difference, therefore with some reservations this data is assumed to include to Travellers). The causes here are at least two-fold. Firstly, there is strong awareness of workplace discrimination against Travellers in Ireland. (For example a 2017 survey found that 75% of Irish people would not want a Traveller as a co-worker). Secondly, Ireland had the second lowest rates of people with disabilities employed in Europe and the EU’s largest disability employment gap in 2021. Combined this suggest that awareness of the challenges Travellers face exceeds awareness of the challenges for those with disabilities.
European Attitudes to Working With Those of Various Belief Systems
Across the EU27, those comfortable (dark blue) or indifferent (yellow) to working with colleagues who hold various belief systems are a clear majority, ranging from 73% to 88% of people. However, there are different attitudes to different belief systems. On average across the EU (27 countries), Christians are the most widely accepted groups, with 94% of people indicated they are comfort working daily with Christians (score 5 – 10), followed by working with atheists (91%), with Jews (90%), with Buddhists (89%) and with Muslims (85%).
While a clear majority are comfortable with any belief system, the red section in the graph indicates clear differences across groups. Those who provided a low comfort score of 1-3 (in reds), ranges from:
- 9% for Muslims
- 6% for Buddhists
- 5% for Jews
- 4% for Atheists
- 3% for Christian.
Attitudes to Working With Those of Various Belief Systems – Comparing Ireland to Europe
In all cases, the data suggests that larger numbers of Irish people are comfortable working with those from various groups compared to the average European. Another difference between Ireland the EU27 is that the largest group that survey participants indicated as less comfortable colleagues are Buddhist (5%) not Muslim (4%).
- Buddhist 18% versus 5%
- Muslim 25% versus 4%
- Atheist 14% versus 3%
- Jewish 15% versus 2%
- Christian 9% versus 2%
Attitudes to Working With Muslim People Across Europe
The data suggests that workplace inclusion across Europe may be more challenging for those of the Islamic belief system. Comparing individual countries against the EU27 average, Ireland (IE) is second only to the Netherlands (NL left-hand bar on the graph) of countries with the highest share of people who indicate they are totally comfortable (score of 10) working with Muslim people. Romanian people (RO – right-hand bar on the graph) have the smallest group of those totally comfortable working with Muslim people but this totally comfortable group is still the single largest group with 48%. A further 20% of Romanians are neutral (scores of 5 and 6), with 28% uncomfortable working with Muslim people.
Comparing European Attitudes to Legal Protections for Inclusive Workplace
Both Ireland and the EU have laws protecting people of different belief systems from workplace discrimination. Reactions to labour and employment legislation is an imperfect way of considering attitudes to workplace inclusion. The scale used in this European Social Survey takes 5 as the mid-point on the scale with red as good and blue as bad. The vast majority of people across Europe think laws against this workplace discrimination are a good thing. In every country the single largest block of people think it an ‘extremely’ good thing (darkest red). In Norway, Sweden, and Slovenia, a large group, around 40%, think this extremely important. The smallest group of strong supporters is in Czechia where a little more than 10% give the strongest endorsement.
Overall, there is overwhelming support (yellows through reds combined) for this kind of a law with support ranging from almost 90% (Norway) to, at lowest, 55% (Denmark). Including the neutral responses (grey) suggests laws against this kind of workplace discrimination are widely accepted across Europe.
At the other end of the scale, in many countries around 5% of people surveyed think this kind of law an extremely bad thing (dark blue). In even the least supportive countries, Slovenia and Denmark, people against these laws are a minority. In Slovenia~20% of people against these laws and in Denmark ~30% against. Slovenia has an indigenous Roma population as well as Slovene, Serb, Croat, and Bosniak (ethnic Muslim). There may be cultural expressions of emotion at play or influence from recent historic ethnic- and religious-related violence, with Slovenia expressing more strongly, whether for or against. Overall, Denmark’s participants demonstrate a range of views across the whole scale. In all aspects, Ireland is middle of the pack.
Expectations or attitudes to discrimination do not dictate experiences of discrimination. Our behaviour and expectations of others behaviour may or may not align with expectations and actual experience. Social codes as well as legal codes guide, but do not dictate, behaviour. Understanding those at the receiving end of workplace discrimination is central and individual action towards workplace inclusion are available to us all.
Further EU and Irish Information on Belief and Workplace Discrimination
- Special Eurobarometer 535 – Discrimination in the EU – European Commission
- European Social Survey – Data Visualiser
- Eurobarometer – Surveys on Discrimination
- Eurobarometer – EU Discrimination 2023 Data Sets
- Religious Discrimination – a European Fact Sheet by Irish Network Against Racism
- Workplace Discrimination and Employment Gaps by Gendelity