Working Paper: NBER ID: w11435
Authors: Joanna Lahey
Abstract: As the baby boom cohort reaches retirement age, demographic pressures on public programs such as social security may cause policy makers to cut benefits and encourage employment at later ages. This paper reports on a labor market experiment to determine the hiring conditions for older women in entry-level jobs in Boston, MA and St. Petersburg, FL. Differential interviewing by age is found for these jobs. A younger worker is more than 40% more likely to be offered an interview than an older worker. No evidence is found to support taste-based discrimination as a reason for this differential and some suggestive evidence is found to support statistical discrimination.
Keywords: No keywords provided
JEL Codes: J1; J7
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| statistical discrimination (J71) | differential treatment of older women (J78) |
| human resources department (M51) | taste-based discrimination (J71) |
| younger workers (J29) | interview requests (C78) |
| age (J14) | interview requests (C78) |