Socioeconomic and Immigration Disparities in Ostracism: A Study of Statistical Outliers

Does ostracism disproportionally affect certain groups? Which groups are at greater risk, and in which social domains (e.g., family, workplace)? To address these questions, we adopted a descriptive approach, leveraging a probability-based sample of Dutch adults, with 5,290 participants and 22,075 ratings of ostracism experiences in various social domains. The distribution of ostracism ratings was zero-inflated and extremely skewed: the majority of values clustered at the left end of the spectrum, indicating ostracism as a rare experience; a smaller number of values formed a tail of statistical outliers indicating ostracism as a frequent experience. Low-income (vs. high) earners had over three times higher odds of facing ostracism frequently by family members and people at work. Immigrants had two to three times higher odds of experiencing ostracism frequently than non-immigrants across all domains. These results highlight group-based disparities in ostracism experiences and identify priority populations in need of support.