Assessing the role of gender in hiring : a field experiment on labour market discrimination

Abstract

Under-representation of females within the labour market, in particular in managerial roles, has sparked a local and global debate on whether women, mostly mothers, face negative discrimination. Numerous scholars and researchers have studied this phenomenon and divergent results were found in the literature from various cross-country analyses. This study investigates whether there is discrimination against females in the labour market at the initial stage of the recruitment process, the call-back to the interview. Building on existing work on gender discrimination, this study asks: Does the gender of the applicant affect the probability and the duration of getting a reply for an interview? In a local context which is characterised with a record-low unemployment figure complemented by strong economic growth, this study would enable a proper analysis of the persistence of gender-based discrimination even when labour demand is high.

Following a review of the literature on the Economics of Discrimination, naturally-occurring field experimentation was the chosen methodology for its ability to investigate the behaviour of economic agents in their usual environment without explicit extraneous intervention. This was performed by sending pairs of fictitious job applications belonging to two fictional male and female candidates (identical to each other except for the demographic characteristics) in response to job vacancies. Then, the behaviour of employers was recorded to assess whether they engage in discriminatory practices. The analysis of the replies through the use of econometric models shows that there is no statistically significant evidence that employers engage in discrimination at the call-back stage of the recruitment process. Furthermore, during this distribution period, no particular age class was favoured or discriminated against; a finding which contradicts some of the publications that were cited in the literature which argue that young female workers are discriminated against due to their maternal responsibilities. On this basis, it is recommended that policymakers make use of growth policies to maintain the current momentum which has produced these results partially due to a shortage of workers. Furthermore, a long-term strategy that ensures the equal split of domestic work and child bearing responsibilities between the two parents is necessary to lessen instances when mothers leave the labour force on a voluntary basis due to lack of equivalent split of household commitments.