Labour Market Discrimination of Muslims and Political Trust in Germany: Experimental Evidence on Muslim and Non-Muslim Responses

This study uses an online experiment to examine whether information about discrimination against Muslim women in the labour market affects Muslims’ trust in political institutions. The study examined whether this effect is more pronounced among Muslims with a strong Muslim identity, and whether there is an indirect effect of such discrimination on political trust via generalised trust. The study also examined reactions by non-Muslims to discrimination against Muslims. The results demonstrate that labour market discrimination reduces the trust of Muslims in the police and the national parliament, particularly among those with a strong identification as Muslim. For non-Muslims, however, no effect was found. Furthermore, the results show a (non-significant) effect of information about discrimination on generalised trust among Muslim participants. The generalised trust of non-Muslims remained unaffected by the knowledge of such information.