Louis Lippens
I am an FWO postdoctoral fellow and lecturer at Ghent University, and a labour economist studying how labour markets treat people. I hold a joint PhD in Economics and Sociology from Ghent University and Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Most of my work concerns hiring discrimination, which I examine through correspondence and audit field experiments and by synthesising the wider evidence base with meta-analysis. The same empirical lens carries into my other interests, which include unemployment and inactivity, alternative work arrangements, and the growing role of generative AI in the labour market. I am affiliated with UGent@Work and IZA@LISER, and I serve on the Ethics Board of the Flemish Public Employment Services (VDAB).
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Selected work
The state of hiring discrimination
European Economic Review, 2023, lead article
Hiring discrimination against candidates with a disability, older candidates, and less attractive candidates is as severe as ethnic discrimination.
Unemployment, inactivity, and hiring chances
Socio-Economic Review, 2026
Spells of up to six months out of work do not harm hiring chances, while scarring becomes noticeable after about twelve months.
Hiring discrimination across vulnerable groups
IZA World of Labor, 2025
The hiring discrimination that vulnerable groups face in Western labour markets persists across countries and is largely stable over time.
Computer says ‘no’
Computers in Human Behavior: Artificial Humans, 2024
ChatGPT rates job applicants differently by ethnic and gender identity, echoing societal stereotypes.