Roma employment in Hungary after the post-communist transition

We analyze the extent and some causes of the low formal employment rate of the Roma in Hungary, using the most reliable survey data. Roma employment dropped dramatically in the first years of the post-communist transition, widened further a little afterwards, and it stayed largely unaffected by macroeconomic conditions after the transition. The absolute employment gap is roughly the same for men and women, more than third of the gap is explained by lower education of the Roma, and geographic location, while different from non-Romanies, explains little once education is controlled for. We also show indirect evidence for labor market discrimination.