Discrimination on rental market in Leuven

Study shows structural discrimination against ethnic minorities, wheelchair users and blind people with assistance dogs. Tuesday, April 6, 2021 — Professor Pieter-Paul Verhaeghe and Billie Martiniello of the Sociology Department of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel have investigated discrimination on the rental housing market of the city of Leuven. It was an academic baseline measurement with correspondence tests commissioned by Leuven city council. The results showed structural discrimination against ethnic minorities, wheelchair users and blind people with an assistance dog. " For each of the minority groups, the discrimination rates were somewhat higher among private landlords than among professional real estate agents, but the differences were never significant. So in contrast to many other cities, real estate agents in Leuven are not doing better than private landlords, - Martiniello and Verhaeghe say. Control with academic tests Between February 2020 and February 2021, the researchers investigated discrimination by real estate agents and private landlords using 1,973 academic correspondence tests - the written variant of situation tests.