Working Paper: NBER ID: w30171
Authors: Joanna Lahey; Roberto M. Mosquera
Abstract: We explore the labor market for Hispanic high school graduates in the United States by age using information from the US Census, American Community Survey, Current Population Survey, and three laboratory experiments. We find, in general, that the differences in outcomes for Hispanic and non-Hispanic high school graduates do not change across the lifecycle. Moving to a laboratory setting, we provided participants with randomized resumes for a clerical position that are on average equivalent except for name and age (as indicated by date of high school graduation). In all three experiments, hypothetical applicants with Hispanic and non-Hispanic names were generally treated the same across the lifecycle by a student population, a population of human resources managers, and a more general population from mTurk. These results stand in contrast to earlier results that find strong differences by age in how resumes with Black and White names are treated.
Keywords: Hispanic labor market; age discrimination; high school graduates; employment outcomes
JEL Codes: C91; J14; J15; J18; J7; M5
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Hispanic high school graduates (I23) | labor market outcomes (J48) |
| non-Hispanic high school graduates (I23) | labor market outcomes (J48) |
| Hispanic high school graduates (I23) | earnings and unemployment rates (J64) |
| non-Hispanic high school graduates (I23) | earnings and unemployment rates (J64) |
| age (J14) | treatment in hiring processes (J78) |
| age (J14) | access to technology (L96) |
| Hispanic high school graduates (I23) | similar treatment in hiring processes (J78) |
| non-Hispanic high school graduates (I23) | similar treatment in hiring processes (J78) |