Airbnb hosts discriminate against African-Americans, study shows

“We recognize that bias and discrimination are significant challenges, and we welcome the opportunity to work with anyone that can help us reduce potential discrimination in the Airbnb community”, a spokesperson told the Huffington Post. The Airbnb study even used the same names: Tamika vs. Laurie, Darnell vs. Brad and more.

“Compare that with whether the guest’s name is Barack or the guest’s name is Bono”, Edelman said. The researchers left the picture field blank in each fictional profile, and included identical profile information on each page.

In response, Airbnb has issued their standard response that they are “committed to making Airbnb one of the most open, trusted, diverse, transparent communities in the world”. This, according to a group of Harvard researchers [PDF], invites racial discrimination.

The study – “Racial Discrimination in the Sharing Economy” – examined Airbnb renters in Baltimore, Dallas, Los Angeles, St. Louis and Washington.

The company was subsequently unsuccessful in attempts to persuade the Government to categorise Airbnb hosts in the rent-a-room scheme, which sets a tax-free threshold of €12,000 for long-term rental earnings, but a new option could become available at a future stage. Among the replies, the study uncovered “widespread discrimination” against black guests, and by almost every kind of host.

This new study, though, does suggest that the particular design of Airbnb’s platform may enable people to act on the implicit bias that many of us have.

And the prejudice is not only objectionable morally, but also financially: “Hosts who reject African-American guests are able to find a replacement guest only 35% of the time”, reports the study, led by Harvard Business School professor Ben Edelman.

That doesn’t mean that the desk clerks at a Marriott are any less likely to have implicit bias than your average Airbnb host.

And get this, it’s not just White folks hating on Black folks, there are plenty of Black folks hating on Black folks. Let us know in the comments. “This is absolutely not a story about how people are bigots on Airbnb – that’s simply an implausible story”, Luca says. In November journalist Zak Stone wrote on Medium about the company’s response to his father’s death on a property with unsafe conditions that was rented through Airbnb.

It didn’t matter whether the host was African-American or white, male or female; they all discriminated against users with African-American-sounding names looking for a room. And it also persists regardless of price or whether the rented place is shared by the host or not.

“Overall, our results suggest that discrimination is not limited to one type of host or one particular situation”.

He confirmed that some Airbnb hosts had terminated their link with the company after being made aware of the necessity to declare rental income, but said the numbers were “very, very low”. Hosts lose $65-$100 each time they reject an African-American guest.