Working Paper: NBER ID: w22469
Authors: Jennifer L. Doleac; Benjamin Hansen
Abstract: Jurisdictions across the United States have adopted "ban the box" (BTB) policies preventing employers from conducting criminal background checks until late in the job application process. Their goal is to improve employment outcomes for those with criminal records, with a secondary goal of reducing racial disparities in employment. However, removing information about job applicants' criminal histories could lead employers who don't want to hire ex-offenders to try to guess who the ex-offenders are, and avoid interviewing them. In particular, employers might avoid interviewing young, low-skilled, black and Hispanic men when criminal records are not observable. This would worsen employment outcomes for these already-disadvantaged groups. In this paper, we use variation in the details and timing of state and local BTB policies to test BTB's effects on employment for various demographic groups. We find that BTB policies decrease the probability of being employed by 3.4 percentage points (5.1%) for young, low-skilled black men, and by 2.3 percentage points (2.9%) for young, low-skilled Hispanic men. These findings support the hypothesis that when an applicant's criminal history is unavailable, employers statistically discriminate against demographic groups that are likely to have a criminal record.
Keywords: Ban the Box; Statistical Discrimination; Employment Outcomes; Criminal Records; Low-Skilled Workers
JEL Codes: J15; J7; J78; K42
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| BTB policies (Z38) | employment outcomes for young, low-skilled black men (J68) |
| BTB policies (Z38) | employment outcomes for young, low-skilled Hispanic men (J68) |
| removal of criminal history information (K24) | statistical discrimination against demographic groups likely to have a criminal record (J79) |
| statistical discrimination against demographic groups likely to have a criminal record (J79) | worsening employment outcomes for disadvantaged groups (J79) |
| BTB policies (Z38) | negative effects on employment outcomes (J68) |
| tight labor markets (J49) | more pronounced negative impacts of BTB policies (F69) |