IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp15285.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Homosexuality's Signalling Function in Job Candidate Screening: Why Gay Is (Mostly) OK

Author

Listed:
  • Sterkens, Philippe

    (Ghent University)

  • Dalle, Axana

    (Ghent University)

  • Wuyts, Joey

    (Ghent University)

  • Pauwels, Ines

    (Ghent University)

  • Durinck, Hellen

    (Ghent University)

  • Baert, Stijn

    (Ghent University)

Abstract

To explain the mixed findings on hiring discrimination against homosexual applicants, we explore the perceptual drivers behind employers' evaluations of gay men and lesbian women. Therefore, we conduct an extensive vignette experiment among 404 genuine recruiters, for which we test systematically-selected perceptions theoretically associated with homosexual job candidates in earlier studies. We find causal evidence for distinct effects of sexual identities on candidate perceptions and interview probabilities. In particular, interview probabilities are positively (negatively) associated with the perception of lesbian women (gay men) as being more (less) pleasant to work with compared to heterosexual candidates. In addition, interview chances are negatively associated with the perception of gay men and lesbian women as being more outspoken. Furthermore, our data align well with the idea of a concentrated discrimination account, whereby a minority of employers who privately hold negative attitudes towards homosexual individuals are responsible for most instances of hiring discrimination.

Suggested Citation

  • Sterkens, Philippe & Dalle, Axana & Wuyts, Joey & Pauwels, Ines & Durinck, Hellen & Baert, Stijn, 2022. "Homosexuality's Signalling Function in Job Candidate Screening: Why Gay Is (Mostly) OK," IZA Discussion Papers 15285, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15285
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp15285.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Yousefpour,Rasoul & Augustynczik, Andrey L. D., 2019. "Uncertainty of Carbon Economy Using the Faustmann Model," Journal of Forest Economics, now publishers, vol. 34(1-2), pages 99-128, August.
    2. Van Borm, Hannah & Burn, Ian & Baert, Stijn, 2021. "What Does a Job Candidate's Age Signal to Employers?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    3. David Neumark, 2018. "Experimental Research on Labor Market Discrimination," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 56(3), pages 799-866, September.
    4. Lippens, Louis & Vermeiren, Siel & Baert, Stijn, 2023. "The state of hiring discrimination: A meta-analysis of (almost) all recent correspondence experiments," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    5. Pedro Costa Ferreira & Raíra Marotta B. Vieira & Felipi Bruno Silva & Ingrid C. L. Oliveira, 2019. "Measuring Brazilian Economic Uncertainty," Journal of Business Cycle Research, Springer;Centre for International Research on Economic Tendency Surveys (CIRET), vol. 15(1), pages 25-40, April.
    6. Philip Oreopoulos, 2011. "Why Do Skilled Immigrants Struggle in the Labor Market? A Field Experiment with Thirteen Thousand Resumes," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 3(4), pages 148-171, November.
    7. Alessandro Acquisti & Christina Fong, 2020. "An Experiment in Hiring Discrimination via Online Social Networks," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(3), pages 1005-1024, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jonathan Reese & Ana Sofia Santos & Tomás A. Palma & Magda Sofia Roberto, 2023. "Triggering competence may protect multiple minority members from hiring discrimination," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-14, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hannah Van Borm & Louis Lippens & Stijn Baert, 2022. "An Arab, an Asian, and a Black guy walk into a job interview: ethnic stigma in hiring after controlling for social class," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 22/1054, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
    2. Van Borm, Hannah & Baert, Stijn, 2022. "Diving in the minds of recruiters: What triggers gender stereotypes in hiring?," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1083, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    3. Billur Aksoy & Ian Chadd & Boon Han Koh, 2022. "(Anticipated) Discrimination against Sexual Minorities in Prosocial Domains," University of East Anglia School of Economics Working Paper Series 2021-08, School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    4. Zanoni, Wladimir & Díaz, Lina, 2024. "Discrimination against migrants and its determinants: Evidence from a Multi-Purpose Field Experiment in the Housing Rental Market," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).
    5. Aksoy, Billur & Chadd, Ian & Koh, Boon Han, 2023. "Sexual identity, gender, and anticipated discrimination in prosocial behavior," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    6. 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).
    7. Gordon B. Dahl & Matthew Knepper, 2023. "Age Discrimination across the Business Cycle," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 15(4), pages 75-112, November.
    8. Piopiunik, Marc & Schwerdt, Guido & Simon, Lisa & Woessmann, Ludger, 2020. "Skills, signals, and employability: An experimental investigation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    9. Mladen Adamovic & Andreas Leibbrandt, 2024. "Is there a glass ceiling for ethnic minorities to enter leadership positions? Evidence from a large-scale field experiment with over 12,000 job applications," Monash Economics Working Papers 2024-06, Monash University, Department of Economics.
    10. Lippens, Louis & Vermeiren, Siel & Baert, Stijn, 2023. "The state of hiring discrimination: A meta-analysis of (almost) all recent correspondence experiments," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    11. L'Horty, Yannick & Mahmoudi, Naomie & Petit, Pascale & Wolff, François-Charles, 2022. "Is disability more discriminatory in hiring than ethnicity, address or gender? Evidence from a multi-criteria correspondence experiment," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 303(C).
    12. Baert, Stijn & Herregods, Jolien & Sterkens, Philippe, 2024. "What does job applicants’ body art signal to employers?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 217(C), pages 742-755.
    13. Lippens, Louis & Dalle, Axana & D'hondt, Fanny & Verhaeghe, Pieter-Paul & Baert, Stijn, 2023. "Understanding ethnic hiring discrimination: A contextual analysis of experimental evidence," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    14. David Neumark & Judith Rich, 2019. "Do Field Experiments on Labor and Housing Markets Overstate Discrimination? A Re-examination of the Evidence," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 72(1), pages 223-252, January.
    15. Cao, Huoqing & Chen, Shiyi & Xi, Xican, 2023. "Aging, migration, and structural transformation in China," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    16. Mourelatos, Evangelos, 2023. "Does Mood affect Sexual and Gender Discrimination in Hiring Choices? Evidence from Online Experiments," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    17. Baert, Stijn, 2017. "Hiring Discrimination: An Overview of (Almost) All Correspondence Experiments Since 2005," GLO Discussion Paper Series 61, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    18. Ayaita, Adam, 2021. "Labor Market Discrimination and Statistical Differences in Unobserved Characteristics of Applicants," EconStor Preprints 236615, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    19. Hinrichs, Peter, 2021. "What kind of teachers are schools looking for? Evidence from a randomized field experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 186(C), pages 395-411.
    20. Giovanni Busetta & Fabio Fiorillo & Giulio Palomba, 2021. "The impact of attractiveness on job opportunities in Italy: a gender field experiment," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 38(1), pages 171-201, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    homosexuality; signalling; statistical discrimination; taste-based discrimination; hiring experiment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J71 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - Hiring and Firing

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15285. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.