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Does volunteering increase employment opportunities? An experimental approach

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  • Alfonso-Costillo, Antonio
  • Morales-Sánchez, Rafael
  • López-Pintado, Dunia

Abstract

We study the benefits of doing volunteer work when seeking employment opportunities. We do so by sending 2000 fictitious curricula to a large online platform of job offers in the United States. Half of these curricula are randomly assigned volunteer activities. We find that people who do volunteer work receive 45 percent more callbacks for interviews. The volunteering premium is not uniform across economic sectors. In retailing and real estate, it is significant, whereas in the other sectors we have studied (animal service, technology, and automobile) it is not.

Suggested Citation

  • Alfonso-Costillo, Antonio & Morales-Sánchez, Rafael & López-Pintado, Dunia, 2021. "Does volunteering increase employment opportunities? An experimental approach," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 203(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:203:y:2021:i:c:s0165176521001312
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2021.109854
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Baert, Stijn & Vujić, Sunčica, 2016. "Immigrant volunteering: A way out of labour market discrimination?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 95-98.
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Job market; Volunteering; Field experiment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C93 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Field Experiments
    • J71 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - Hiring and Firing
    • J64 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search

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