Identifying rental discrimination on the Flemish housing market: an intersectional approach

ABSTRACT

This study aims to identify rental discrimination on the Flemish rental housing market in Belgium, taking the intersectional nature of discrimination into account. Most discrimination studies focus on unequal access based on one individual discrimination ground. This practice eludes the context of the other discrimination grounds in which rental discrimination occurs and neglects the intersectional nature of discrimination. We therefore conducted 8.245 correspondence tests in almost all municipalities in Flanders, the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium. We apply an intersectional lens, by considering the relation and interaction between gender (male/female), ethnic origin (Moroccan/Polish) and the homogeneity of names (homogenous/mixed). We find four strata of rental discrimination, in which Moroccan female rental candidates with a homogenous name experience most discrimination, indicating that multiple categorical identities enforce each other. Without a full intersectional approach, these layered patterns of exclusion would have been hidden behind the bold boundaries of ethnic or gender categorizations.

KEYWORDS:

• Ethnic discrimination
• gender discrimination
• intersectionality
• housing market
• correspondence tests
• homogeneity of names

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by FWO under Grant S004119N. Ethical approval was granted by the ethical commission of human science of the authors institution under reference number ECHW_289. The principle of informed consent was waived by the ethical committee as this might bias the correspondence tests. The two first authors contributed equally to this manuscript. Authors were ordered alphabetically.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Research Foundation Flanders [grant number S004119N].