Doctoral Dissertation Research: An Audit Study to Understand Hiring Practices

Ohio State University, The, Columbus OH

Investigators

Abstract

Despite significant progress over the past few decades, women's workplace achievements continue to lag behind those of men. Gender disparities are due, in part, to occupational segregation - the social pattern in which men and women occupy different, often unequal jobs, frequently in different industries. Indeed, research indicates that occupational segregation is even more important than within-job disparities in the unequal distribution of resources among men and women. While there is significant evidence to suggest that women and men do make different occupational choices, limited research exists on employers' actual hiring practices in regard to gender. Thus, there are gaps in our understanding of the extent of gender discrimination in the United States and the role it plays in occupational segregation. By collecting data on employer practices across the United States, this dissertation will investigate hiring discrimination on the basis of gender in both white-collar and working-class occupations and pinpoint characteristics associated with it. Analyses will address whether hiring discrimination is heightened in working-class jobs, as many scholars speculate, and thus, is a fundamental reason for relatively few women and starker occupational segregation patterns in working-class jobs, compared to white-collar jobs. This study will also examine whether labor market conditions, such as job growth patterns and regional variation, affect the degree of social closure mechanisms, an important yet understudied area in the hiring literature. Lastly, the research will examine whether higher levels of human capital can compensate for inequality derived from ascribed statuses (i.e., sex) during the hiring process. This research advances gender stratification and organizational theories by evaluating the role that merit plays in hiring practices and has crucial, direct implications for employment hiring and nationwide legal policies. Utilizing a resumé audit study the research will investigate the presence of, and contexts associated with, hiring gender discrimination in eight states across five U.S. regions, and examine how qualifications moderate gender discrimination in white-collar and working-class occupations. Resumé audit tests provide compelling data for hiring discrimination because job choices, qualifications and productivity levels are held constant between the two candidates, only the gender changes. This project is based on 2,000 matched pairs of resumés and will conduct analyses on the callback rates for the male and female candidates and analyze results by occupation, labor market conditions, occupational sex ratios, and regions. There are many direct impacts that can develop from this research on discrimination and work. There are plans to widely disseminate the findings in both academic and public forums where these impacts can be maximized. Additionally, valuable research experience will be provided to undergraduate students working on this project. They will be directly involved in data collection, and will have the opportunity to write an undergraduate thesis out of preliminary data. In addition to learning about hiring discrimination, they will be able to leverage their research and writing experience in future job or graduate school opportunities.