A study published three months ago — March 24, 2014 — is quickly making the rounds in the media and social media. In brief, the paper says that in the southern U.S. states, only one religion is helpful for job candidates to have on their resumes.
A publication called Social Currents, from the Southern Sociological Society, published the study. Time, CNBC, the Washington Post, and others are reporting on it today, noting that job candidates who list a religion — such as Islam or Atheism or Catholicism — on a resume are less likely to receive an email from an employer.
With Jewish candidates, according to the study, there was “no statistically significant evidence of hiring discrimination.”
The authors speculate that the results could be due to 1) the importance of Judaism in Christian theology, which is influential in southern states; and 2) southern Jews historically not forming distinct areas like in the northeast, with the authors saying that “Jews thrived in the south not by brandishing their religious differences but by embracing key aspects of southern evangelical culture.”