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Do Low-Wage Employers Discriminate against Applicants with Long Commutes?: Evidence from a Correspondence Experiment

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  • David C. Phillips

Abstract

I use a correspondence study of the low-wage labor market in Washington, DC to test whether employers discriminate against applicants who live farther from the job location. Fictional résumés randomly assigned to addresses far from the job location receive 14 percent fewer callbacks than those with addresses in nearby but similarly affluent neighborhoods. Living five to six miles away from the job results in a penalty equal to that received by applicants with stereotypically black names. On the other hand, holding commute distance constant, I find no statistical evidence that employers respond to a neighborhood’s affluence.

Suggested Citation

  • David C. Phillips, 2020. "Do Low-Wage Employers Discriminate against Applicants with Long Commutes?: Evidence from a Correspondence Experiment," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 55(3), pages 864-901.
    • Handle: RePEc:uwp:jhriss:v:55:y:2020:i:3:p:864-901
    Note: DOI: 10.3368/jhr.55.3.1016-8327R
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Aliprantis, Dionissi & Martin, Hal & Tauber, Kristen, 2024. "What determines the success of housing mobility programs?," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    2. Gaddis, S. Michael, 2018. "An Introduction to Audit Studies in the Social Sciences," SocArXiv e5hfc, Center for Open Science.
    3. Doerrenberg, Philipp & Duncan, Denvil & Li, Danyang, 2024. "The (in)visible hand: Do workers discriminate against employers?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 231(C).
    4. Amanda Agan & Sonja Starr, 2016. "Ban the Box, Criminal Records, and Statistical Discrimination: A Field Experiment," Natural Field Experiments 00539, The Field Experiments Website.
    5. Schaerer, Michael & du Plessis, Christilene & Nguyen, My Hoang Bao & van Aert, Robbie C.M. & Tiokhin, Leo & Lakens, Daniël & Giulia Clemente, Elena & Pfeiffer, Thomas & Dreber, Anna & Johannesson, Mag, 2023. "On the trajectory of discrimination: A meta-analysis and forecasting survey capturing 44 years of field experiments on gender and hiring decisions," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 179(C).
    6. Magnus Carlsson & Stefan Eriksson, 2023. "Do employers avoid hiring workers from poor neighborhoods? Experimental evidence from the real labor market," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 125(2), pages 376-402, April.
    7. Christopher M Clapp & Steven Stern & Steven Dan Yu, 2017. "Interactions of Public Paratransit and Vocational Rehabilitation," Department of Economics Working Papers 17-12, Stony Brook University, Department of Economics.
    8. Brian Asquith & Judith K. Hellerstein & Mark J. Kutzbach & David Neumark, 2021. "Social capital determinants and labor market networks," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(1), pages 212-260, January.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J7 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination
    • R2 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis
    • J6 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers

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