Working Paper: NBER ID: w22786
Authors: Dylan Glover; Amanda Pallais; William Pariente
Abstract: Examining the performance of cashiers in a French grocery store chain, we find that manager bias negatively affects minority job performance. In the stores studied, cashiers work with different managers on different days and their schedules are determined quasi-randomly. When minority cashiers, but not majority cashiers, are scheduled to work with managers who are biased (as determined by an Implicit Association Test), they are absent more often, spend less time at work, scan items more slowly, and take more time between customers. Manager bias has consequences for the average performance of minority workers: while on average minority and majority workers perform equivalently, on days where managers are unbiased, minorities perform significantly better than do majority workers. This appears to be because biased managers interact less with minorities, leading minorities to exert less effort.
Keywords: discrimination; manager bias; labor market; implicit association test; performance
JEL Codes: J24; J71; J78; M50
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| manager bias (D91) | job performance of minority cashiers (J15) |
| manager bias (D91) | higher absence rates of minority cashiers (J15) |
| manager bias (D91) | reduced time spent at work by minority cashiers (J29) |
| manager bias (D91) | slower scanning speeds of minority cashiers (J79) |
| manager bias (D91) | longer intercustomer times of minority cashiers (J29) |
| biased managers (G41) | lower expectations (D84) |
| minority workers with biased managers (J79) | lower performance metrics (D29) |
| fewer minority workers in stores (J79) | more pronounced effect of manager bias (D91) |