Doctoral Dissertation Research in Economics: Age Discrimination, an Audit Study

Massachusetts Institute Of Technology, Cambridge MA

Investigators

Abstract

Labor market discrimination is a major social concern in the US, yet its causes are not well understood. This research explores labor market discrimination against unskilled women between the ages of 45 and 65 using a resume audit approach. Matched resumes, identical in all respects except age, will be sent to companies with entry-level job openings. Age is signaled by date of high school graduation and only the most recent 10 years of work experience will be listed on the resume. If discrimination exists, there should be a negative relationship between age and interview request rates. The resume audit will be conducted in the Boston and Tampa/St Petersburg areas. Other reasons for discrimination will also be explored through varying resume characteristics. OLS and logit regressions will be used to analyze the data. Sociologists and psychologists have used the resume audits to study labor market discrimination but these studies lack the double blind attribute. While economists have used the matched pair resume audit method to study housing and labor market discrimination, only one set of audit studies has been done to explore age discrimination in the labor market. This research presents well-controlled evidence on the extent of age-discrimination against older women in the labor market and the ability of these potential workers to supplement their social security income. The result of this research will add to our current knowledge through its ability to discriminate between different reasons for age discrimination in hiring. Finally, since it compares four different ages rather than just two, this study adds power to the audit methodology as used in age discrimination. Although there are more older women in the labor force than older men, there are been virtually no studies of labor market discrimination against older women. The economics literature generally assumes that labor force non-participation is a choice for older women and that only supply-side factors are relevant for policy discussions (such as changing social security benefits). Given that women live longer than men, this is a serious omission in the literature and policy discussions. By exploring the demand-side aspects of labor market for older women, this study will bring the demand-side of the labor market for older women into policy discussions about older people generally and older women in particular.