This paper shows the results of a field experiment in which over 6000 fictitious resumes with randomly assigned information about age (35–70 years) were sent to Swedish employers with vacancies in low- and medium-skilled occupations. We find that the callback rate begins to fall substantially for workers in their early 40s and becomes very low for workers close to the retirement age. The decline in the callback rate by age is steeper for women than for men. Employer stereotypes about the ability to learn new tasks, flexibility, and ambition seem to be an important explanation for age discrimination.
Discrimination in the housing market may create large economic inefficiencies and unfair individual outcomes, but is very difficult to measure. To circumvent the problems with unobserved heterogeneity, most recent studies use the correspondence testing approach (i.e. sending fictitious inquiries to landlords). In this study, we generalize the existing methodology in order to facilitate a test of to what extent the measured degree of discrimination depends on applicant, landlord/apartment, and regional characteristics. To show how this more general methodology can be implemented, we investigate the effects of gender, ethnicity, age, and employment status in the Swedish rental market for apartments. Our results confirm the existence of widespread discrimination against some of the groups, but also show that the degree of discrimination varies substantially with landlord, apartment, and regional characteristics. This heterogeneity highlights the importance of using a broad approach when conducting correspondence studies. Our results also allow us to interpret the nature of discrimination and how it relates to segregation and geographical sorting.
Survey data on people’s reported attitudes towards ethnic minorities are sometimes used as a proxy for ethnic discrimination. However, there is weak empirical evidence of a link between reported attitudes and discrimination. In this article, we use survey data on people’s attitudes towards ethnic minorities combined with a direct measure of ethnic discrimination from a field experiment in the Swedish housing market to re-examine this policy-relevant issue. We find clear evidence of a link between reported attitudes towards ethnic minorities and the extent of ethnic discrimination: in regions where attitudes are more negative, there is more discrimination, and vice versa. Thus, in contrast to most prior studies, our results suggest that reported attitudes may be a useful predictor of ethnic discrimination.
We investigate if employers avoid hiring workers living in neighborhoods with low socioeconomic status and/or with long commuting times. In a large-scale field experiment in the Swedish labor market, we sent more than 4,000 fictitious resumes, with randomly assigned information about the applicants’ residential locations, to firms with advertised vacancies. Our findings show that commuting time has a negative effect on the likelihood of being contacted by an employer, while the socioeconomic status of a neighborhood does not appear to be important. These results offer guidance for policymakers responsible for reversing segregation patterns.
Reported attitudes towards immigrants are sometimes used as a proxy for ethnic
discrimination. However, there is little empirical evidence of a link between attitudes and
discrimination. In this paper, we use survey data on people’s attitudes towards immigrants
combined with data on ethnic discrimination from a field experiment in the Swedish housing
market to re-examine this issue. We find clear evidence of a link between reported attitudes
towards immigrants and the extent of ethnic discrimination at the municipality level. Thus, in
contrast to most prior studies, our results suggest that reported attitudes may be a useful
proxy for ethnic discrimination.
It is well documented that there exists ethnic discrimination in the regular housing market in European and US cities. However, the existing literature has so far neglected the informal market for shared housing. We use a field experiment to investigate ethnic discrimination in this market. We sent fictitious enquiries with a randomly assigned name signalling a British, Eastern European, Indian, African or Arabic/Muslim background to more than 5000 room advertisers in the Greater London Area. Our main finding is that ethnic discrimination is widespread. We also find that the degree of discrimination depends on the applicant's occupation and the ethnic residential concentration.
We investigate in-group gender bias in real-world hiring decisions by combining administrative data with data from a large-scale field experiment on hiring in which fictitious resumes with randomly assigned information about gender were sent to Swedish employers. Our results suggest that women (female recruiters or firms with a high share of female employees) favor women in the recruitment process. In contrast, we do not find much evidence that men (male recruiters or firms with a high share of male employees) favor men.
I denna artikel diskuterar vi förekomsten av åldersdiskriminering vid rekryteringar på den svenska arbetsmarknaden. Vi har genomfört ett fältexperiment, där över 6 000 fiktiva jobbansökningar med slumpmässigt tilldelad information om ålder (i intervallet 35–70 år) har skickats till arbetsgivare med en utannonserad vakans. Vi finner att sannolikheten att bli kontaktad av en arbetsgivare faller kraftigt redan från 40-årsåldern och är mycket låg för personer nära pensionsåldern. Kontaktsannolikheten faller snabbare med åldern för kvinnor än för män. Arbetsgivares uppfattningar om arbetstagares förmåga att lära sig nya saker, vara anpassningsbara/flexibla och vara drivna/initiativrika kan vara viktiga förklaringar till diskrimineringen.
We conduct a survey of newly hired workers in the Swedish labour market to analyse if there are differences between natives and immigrants in the choice of search intensity/methods and in the search method getting the job. We further investigate if the wage and other characteristics of the new job differ depending on the successful search method. We find that immigrants use all search methods more than natives, but they especially rely on informal search. Immigrants are more likely than natives to find a job using informal search through friends and relatives, and these jobs are associated with lower wages.
How important is imperfect competition in the product market for employment dynamics? To investigate this, we formulate a model of employment adjustment with search frictions, vacancy costs, hiring costs, and imperfect competition in the product market. From this model, we derive a structural equation for employment that we estimate on firm-level data. We find that product market demand shocks have significant and quantitatively large effects on employment. This supports a model with imperfect competition in the product market. We find no evidence that the level of unemployment in the local labour market has a direct effect on job creation in existing firms. In some specifications, we find evidence of congestion effects, i.e., that hiring is slowed down if there are many vacancies in the local labour market.
Although search-matching theory has come to dominate labor economics in recent years, few attempts have been made to compare the empirical relevance of search-matching theory to efficiency wage and bargaining theories, where employment is determined by labor demand. In this paper we formulate an empirical equation for net job creation, which encompasses search-matching theory and a standard labor demand model. Estimation on firm-level data yields support for the labor demand model, wages and product demand affect job creation, but we find no evidence that unemployed workers contribute to job creation, as predicted by search-matching theory.
This paper investigates the consequences of skill loss as a result of unemployment in an efficiency wage model with turnover costs and on-the-job search. Firms are unable to differentiate wages and therefore prefer to hire employed searchers or unemployed workers who have not lost human capital. It is shown that if some fundamental factor in the economy changes, this will result in a lengthy adjustment process with substantial long run unemployment effects. Moreover, the model is capable of generating persistence but the amount depends on the duration of the shock itself.
We formulate an efficiency wage model with on-the-job search where wages depend on turnover and employers may use information on whether the searching worker is employed or unemployed as a hiring criterion. We show theoretically that such ranking of job applicants by employment status raises both the level and the persistence of unemployment and numerically that the effects may be substantial. More prevalent ranking in Europe compared to the US (because of more rigid wage structures etc.) could potentially help to explain the high and persistent unemployment in Europe.
We study the recruitment behaviour of Swedish employers using data from a stated choice experiment. In the experiment, the employers are first asked to describe an employee who recently and voluntarily left the firm and then to choose between two hypothetical applicants to invite to a job interview or to hire as a replacement for their previous employee. The two applicants differ with respect to characteristics such as gender, age, education, work experience, ethnicity, religious beliefs, family situation, weight, and health, but otherwise have similar characteristics as the previous employee. Our results show that employers prefer not to recruit applicants who are old, non-European, Muslim, Jewish, obese, have several children, or have a history of sickness absence. We also calculate the reduction in wage costs needed to make employers indifferent between applicants with and without these characteristics, and find that wage costs would have to be reduced by up to 50 % for applicants with some characteristics.
We study the recruitment behavior of Swedish employers using data from a stated choice experiment. In the experiment, the employers are first asked to describe an employee who recently and voluntarily left the firm, and then to choose between two hypothetical applicants to invite to a job interview or to hire as a replacement for their previous employee. The two applicants differ with respect to characteristics such as gender, age, education, experience, ethnicity, religious beliefs, family situation, weight, and health. Our results show that employers discriminate against applicants who are old, non-European, Muslim, Jewish, obese, have several children, or have a history of sickness absence. Expressed in wage terms, this discrimination corresponds to a wage reduction of up to 50 percent. Moreover, increasing the firms’ cost of uncertainty in hiring – through more firm co-payment in the sickness benefit system – may reduce hiring, but does not affect the degree of discrimination. Also, there are only small differences in the degree of discrimination between different types of recruiters and firms. Overall, our results suggest that the discrimination, at least partially, should reflect statistical discrimination.
We use the Swedish Applicant Database to empirically investigate whether being unemployed per se reduces the probability of getting contacted by a firm. All searchers looking for a new job are invited to submit their personal details to this database over the Internet. Since we have access to exactly the same information as the firms, we can minimize the problems associated with unobserved heterogeneity. Our results show that an unemployed applicant faces a lower contact probability than an otherwise identical employed applicant, thus supporting the notion that firms view employment status as a signal for productivity.
This paper uses data from an Internet-based CV database to investigate how factors which may be used as a basis for discrimination, such as the searchers’ ethnicity, gender, age and employment status, affect the number of contacts they receive from firms. Since we have access to essentially the same information as the firms, we can handle the problems associated with unobserved heterogeneity better than most existing studies of discrimination. We find that, even when we control for other differences, searchers who have non-Nordic names, are old or unemployed receive significantly fewer contacts. Moreover, we find that this matters for the hiring outcome: Searchers who receive more contacts have a higher probability of actually getting hired.
This article uses data from an Internet-based CV database to study how job searchers’ ethnicity, employment status, age, and gender affect how often they are contacted by firms. Since we know which types of information that are available to the recruiting firms, we can handle some of the problems with unobserved heterogeneity better than many existing discrimination studies. We find that searchers who have non-Nordic names, are unemployed or old get significantly fewer firm contacts. Moreover, this matters for the hiring outcome: searchers who get more contacts have a higher probability of getting hired.
This paper studies the determinants and labor market consequences of unemployed workers’ wage demands using direct data on the workers’ actual wage requests. Our results show that most workers want a wage close to what they earned in their previous jobs, and thus much more than they get in unemployment benefits. However, our results also show that some groups, such as women, tend to systematically demand lower wages. Also, we find that workers with high wage demands are contacted by firms less often than otherwise similar workers with lower wage demands. Thus our results indicate that too high wage demands may contribute to high unemployment.
This paper studies the determinants and consequences in the early stages of the hiring process of unemployed workers’ wage demands using direct data on workers’ wage requests. We show that most unemployed workers want a wage close to their previous wage, and thus much more than they get in unemployment benefits. However, some groups, such as women, tend to demand lower wages. Moreover, we find that workers with high wage demands are contacted by firms less often than otherwise similar workers with lower wage demands. Thus, our results suggest that too high wage demands may contribute to high unemployment.
This paper uses data from an Internet-based CV database to investigate if women are more restrictive than men in their choice of search area, and if this is of importance in the early stages of the hiring process. We show that women are less likely to search in the metropolitan areas or far away fromwhere they currently live. Moreover, our results indicate that these differences are important: Female searchers get fewer firm contacts, and we show that this is to a large extent explained by their more restrictive search area. When we include controls for the searchers search area, the negative gender effect disappears. However, the results differ somewhat across subgroups: For highly skilled women the search area is important, but there remains an unexplained negative gender effect. Our results suggest that gender differences in job search may be important to consider in studies of gender differences in labor market outcomes.
This paper studies gender differences in labor market outcomes using data from an Internetbased CV database. The women in the database get fewer firm contacts than men, and we show that this is partly explained by differences in education, experience and other skills, is not explained by differences in occupation and place of residence, and to a large extent is explained by differences in geographical search area. When we take into account differences in search area, the negative gender effect disappears. However, the results differ somewhat across subgroups: For highly skilled women a negative gender effect remains.
I denna artikel beskrivs resultaten av en studie där vi undersökt om en arbetslös jobbsökande har en lägre sannolikhet att bli kontaktad av en arbetsgivare än en i alla andra avseenden identisk sysselsatt sökande. Vi använder data från Sökandebanken, där AMS erbjuder arbetssökande att via Internet skicka in sina meritförteckningar och önskemål om de jobb de vill finna. Våra resultat visar att arbetslösa sökande har en lägre sannolikhet att bli kontaktade av företag, vilket kan tolkas som att företag betraktar sysselsättningsstatus som en viktig indikator för de sökandes produktivitet.
The stigma associated with long-term unemployment spells could create large inefficiencies in labor markets. While the existing literature points toward large stigma effects, it has proven difficult to estimate causal relationships. Using data from a field experiment, we find that long-term unemployment spells in the past do not matter for employers' hiring decisions, suggesting that subsequent work experience eliminate this negative signal. Nor do employers treat contemporary short-term unemployment spells differently, suggesting that they understand that worker/firm matching takes time. However, employers attach a negative value to contemporary unemployment spells lasting at least nine months, providing evidence of stigma effects.
Att snabbt lära sig svenska framhålls ofta som en nyckel för att utlandsfödda ska kunna ta sig in på den svenska arbetsmarknaden. Betydelsen av muntliga och skriftliga språkfärdigheter verkar dessutom ha ökat över tid, även i lågkvalificerade yrken. I rapporten undersöker författarna vilka svenskkunskaper som krävs för att få ett jobb och hur väl de utlandsfödda lever upp till dessa krav. Studien bygger på en enkätundersökning med svar från drygt 800 rekryterare samt registerdata om utlandsföddas svenskkunskaper.
This paper studies the determinants of hiring. We use the search-matching model with imperfect competition in the product market from Carlsson, Eriksson and Gottfries (2011) to derive an equation for total hiring in a local labor market, and estimate it on Swedish panel data. When product markets are imperfectly competitive, product demand shocks have a direct effect on employment. Our results show that product demand is important for hiring. Moreover, we show that conventional measures of vacancies do not fully capture the effect of product demand on hiring. Finally, we show that the number of unemployed workers has a positive effect on hiring as predicted by search-matching models.
In this article, we study the importance of product market demand and search frictions for hiring. We use a search-matching model with imperfect competition in the product market to derive an equation for total hiring in a local labour market, and estimate it on Swedish panel data. If product markets are imperfectly competitive, product demand shocks should have a direct effecton employment for given levels of prices and wages. Our main finding is that product demand has such a direct effect on hiring. This highlights the importance of taking imperfect competitionin the product market into account in studies of employment dynamics and hiring. We also find that, for given levels of prices, wages, and product demand, the number of unemployed workersin a local labour market has a positive effect on hiring, suggesting that search frictions matter. Quantitatively, product demand shocks seem to be more important for understanding the variation in hiring than shocks to the number of unemployed workers.