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What Happens When Employers Can No Longer Discriminate in Job Ads?

Author

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  • Kuhn, Peter J.

    (University of California, Santa Barbara)

  • Shen, Kailing

    (Australian National University)

Abstract

When employers' explicit gender requests were unexpectedly removed from a Chinese job board overnight, pools of successful applicants became more integrated: women's (men's) share of call-backs to jobs that had requested men (women) rose by 63 (146) percent. The removal 'worked' in this sense because it generated a large increase in gender-mismatched applications, and because those applications were treated surprisingly well by employers. The removal had little or no effect on aggregate matching frictions. The job titles that were integrated however, were not the most gendered ones, and were disproportionately lower-wage jobs.

Suggested Citation

  • Kuhn, Peter J. & Shen, Kailing, 2021. "What Happens When Employers Can No Longer Discriminate in Job Ads?," IZA Discussion Papers 14618, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14618
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    Cited by:

    1. Lalive, Rafael & Card, David & Colella, Fabrizio, 2021. "Gender Preferences in Job Vacancies and Workplace Gender Diversity," CEPR Discussion Papers 16619, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Shen, Kailing, 2021. "Gender Discrimination," IZA Discussion Papers 14897, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Jennifer Hunt & Carolyn Moehling, 2024. "Do Female–Owned Employment Agencies Mitigate Discrimination and Expand Opportunity for Women?," NBER Working Papers 32383, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Bamieh, Omar & Ziegler, Lennart, 2023. "Gender-age differences in hiring rates and prospective wages—Evidence from job referrals to unemployed workers," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    5. Dustan, Andrew & Koutout, Kristine & Leo, Greg, 2022. "Second-order beliefs and gender," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 752-781.
    6. Larissa Fuchs & Matthias Heinz & Pia Pinger & Max Thon, 2024. "How to Attract Talents? Field-Experimental Evidence on Emphasizing Flexibility and Career Opportunities in Job Advertisements," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 332, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    gender segregation; job search; recruiting; gender; discrimination;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J63 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Turnover; Vacancies; Layoffs
    • J71 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - Hiring and Firing

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