As per a recent study conducted by researchers at Rutgers University, Airbnb hosts are more likely to reject requests from the people with disabilities.
The researchers created “fictitious” Airbnb guest profiles to represent white male adults of about 30 years of age with blindness, dwarfism, cerebral palsy, spinal cord injury, or no disability. Then, through those profiles, they contacted nearly 4,000 Airbnb listings across the United States.
During the process, few renters asked if the property was accessible to one of the four disabilities. The numbers indicate that except dwarfism, profiles of people with disability had a higher probability of getting rejected when compared to people with no disability. The guests who did not reveal their disability received pre-approval from a host in 74.5 percent of the total cases. However, for a person with dwarfism, the percentage declined to 60.9. These rates further dropped to 49.7 percent for a person with blindness, and just 25 percent for someone who has a spinal cord injury.
The cases where the hosts further followed the requests made by a person with questions were not categorized as preapproved. According to the researchers, this could justify some of the differences in pre-approval rates. In a statement, Airbnb said,
Discrimination of any kind on the Airbnb platform, including on the basis of ability, is abhorrent, a violation of our anti-discrimination policy and will result in permanent removal from our platform.
This study was conducted over a period of six months. Somewhere between this time period, Airbnb had introduced a new anti-discrimination policy, which had to be complied by all the hosts. It says it has also collaborated with has various disability organizations to educate hosts. In addition, it is gunning to release a new accessibility listing and filtering features this summer.
The research has selected a sample, which certainly does not depict all the characteristics of the population. For example, it was only conducted on white people, that too, males who are around or in their thirties. However, discrimination is certainly an issue that needs to be addressed and the company should make sure the guests do not come across such situations. On the policy, and the partnership with various organizations, Airbnb had added,
This is just the start, and we will continue to engage experts and leaders in this area to ensure our community is open and accessible to everyone.
