In the UK, studies have repeatedly found evidence of accentism. Prejudice based on someone’s way of speaking can affect people in the classroom, the office and beyond.
Our research of dialects and peer-to-peer lending in China found that this kind of linguistic discrimination can also influence someone’s access to finance. Specifically, that accent bias, communication barriers or dialect discrimination may lead to borrowers who speak minority dialects receiving smaller loans and having higher default rates.
