Working Paper: NBER ID: w29116
Authors: Peter J. Kuhn; Kailing Shen
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.
Keywords: gender discrimination; job advertisements; labor market; callback rates; gender integration
JEL Codes: J16; J63; J71
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Asymmetry in effects of the ban (F69) | Differences in application behaviors between men and women (J16) |
| Removal of explicit gender requests in job ads (J79) | Integration of callback pools (Y80) |
| Removal of explicit gender requests in job ads (J79) | Increase in gender-mismatched applications (J79) |
| Increase in gender-mismatched applications (J79) | Callback outcomes (Y10) |
| Increase in women's share of callbacks to male-preferred jobs (J79) | Integration of callback pools (Y80) |
| Increase in men's share of callbacks to female-preferred jobs (J79) | Integration of callback pools (Y80) |
| Removal of explicit gender requests in job ads (J79) | Changes in application patterns (R23) |
| Removal of explicit gender requests in job ads (J79) | Changes in callback chances (J62) |