Disparities
Do Diversity Claims Cause Labor Market Sorting by Political Partisanship? Evidence from Experiments
Reuben Hurst & Saerom (Ronnie) Lee
University of Pennsylvania Working Paper, June 2024
Abstract:
This study investigates how diversity claims may cause labor market sorting by political partisanship. In a field experiment conducted in partnership with a U.S. software company, we show that diversity claims are disproportionately unattractive to Republican job seekers. Our follow-up survey experiment suggests that this decreased attraction is driven by not only taste-based (i.e., ideological misalignment) but also statistical mechanisms (i.e., inferences about what diversity claims signal regarding unobservable employer characteristics). Notably, while previous studies have demonstrated that diversity claims lower expectations of discrimination for women and people of color, we find that these claims can, in fact, raise expectations of discrimination (while also reducing expectations of meritocracy) for workers on the political right. Overall, our findings imply that efforts to improve gender or racial diversity through diversity claims may create a more homogeneous workplace in terms of political partisanship.
Rumor has it: CEO gender and response to organizational denials
Nicole Votolato Montgomery & Amanda Cowen
Journal of Applied Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
The ambiguous credibility of online allegations can pose a significant threat to an organization's reputation, relationships with stakeholders, and future performance. As a result, addressing false or misleading allegations has emerged as an important priority among corporate executives. In this research, we examine how CEO gender influences the effectiveness of different types of denial responses in the wake of rumor crises. We find that, after reading damaging allegations about an organization, consumers react more favorably to denials issued by male versus female CEOs. We argue that this is attributable to the dominance that characterizes denial responses, which results in a greater (negative) expectancy violation for female (vs. male) CEOs issuing such statements. Such violations result in lower trust in, and less willingness to do business with, organizations led by women (vs. men) who issue a denial response. We show that these relationships are moderated by increased prescriptive agency (i.e., clarified denials) and the attribution of the response (i.e., to the CEO vs. organization). Taken together, our findings have implications for theory on agentic characteristics, crisis communication, and female leadership, as well as practical implications for how all organizations can adopt more effective crisis responses.
Steering Women out of Engineering: Career Assessment Tools as a Technology of Self-Expressive Segregation
Mary Blair-Loy et al.
Sociological Inquiry, forthcoming
Abstract:
Previous research has shown that gendered societal expectations are adopted by students as seemingly personal and individualistic self-assessments and preferences, which then lead to gender-normative choices about college majors and careers. This study examines one seemingly objective mechanism, which millions use each year for guidance on college majors and careers. We examine two Career Assessment Tools (CATs) with deep institutional presence: O*NET and Traitify. Analyzing an exemplar case of engineering majors, we find that CATs are less likely to recommend engineering occupations to women, even after controlling for GPA, satisfaction with the major, and planned persistence. Even in our sample of engineering majors, CATs apparently use small differences in students' gender-normative self-expressive preferences to drive sharply different occupational recommendations, thereby solidifying pathways toward gender-segregated occupations and reinforcing men's dominance of engineering. If women similar to our study participants take CATs, they are likely to be steered away from engineering occupations or majors. More broadly, CATs illustrate how taken-for-granted, seemingly neutral technologies can reinforce gender segregation.
Delegation in Hiring: Evidence from a Two-Sided Audit
Bo Cowgill & Patryk Perkowski
Journal of Political Economy Microeconomics, forthcoming
Abstract:
Firms increasingly delegate job screening to third-party recruiters, who must not only satisfy employers' demand for different types of candidates, but also manage yield by anticipating candidates' likelihood of accepting offers. We study how recruiters balance these objectives in a novel, two-sided field experiment. Our results suggest that candidates' behavior towards employers is very correlated, but that employers' hiring behavior is more idiosyncratic. Workers discriminate using the race and gender of the employer's leaders more than employers discriminate against the candidate's race and gender. Black and female candidates face particularly high uncertainty, as their callback rates vary widely across employers. Callback decisions place about two thirds weight on employer's expected behavior and one third on yield management. We conclude by discussing the accuracy of recruiter beliefs and how they impact labor market sorting.
Transgender Earnings Gaps in the United States: Evidence from Administrative Data
Christopher Carpenter, Lucas Goodman & Maxine Lee
NBER Working Paper, July 2024
Abstract:
We provide the first evidence on transgender earnings in the US using administrative data on over 55,000 individuals who changed their gender marker with the Social Security Administration and had gender-congruent first name changes on tax records. We validate and describe this sample which exhibits positive selection likely associated with the ability to legally affirm gender. To address selection we estimate transgender earnings gaps using timing variation within-person and variation across siblings and coworkers. All three approaches return evidence of robust transgender earnings penalties of 6-13 log points driven by extensive and intensive margin differences.
The representation dynamic and the "normalization" of group differences
Jean-Paul Carvalho & Bary Pradelski
Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, forthcoming
Abstract:
Intergroup inequality has been linked to differing norms of economic participation among groups. We present a theory of endogenous identity-specific norms in which the larger a group's representation in an economic activity, the more the activity is deemed "normal" or "appropriate" for its members. This representation dynamic can arise from behavioral heuristics or be created by informational technologies such as generative artificial intelligence. Through it, the economic underrepresentation of a group becomes "normalized," resulting in more severe inequality than in standard models. Equality of opportunity almost never results in equal outcomes, even when groups have the same productivity. Minorities and historically marginalized groups tend to be underrepresented. However, minorities with greater productivity and/or weaker group identification can become overrepresented, and even dominant. When there are multiple career stages, underrepresentation can escalate at senior levels long after "glass ceilings" have disappeared. Underrepresentation disappears as economic returns rise and/or group identification weakens.