Do job networks disadvantage women? Evidence from a recruitment experiment in Malawi

Lori Beaman, Niall Keleher, Jeremy Magruder

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

56 Scopus citations

Abstract

We use a field experiment to show that referral-based hiring has the potential to disadvantage qualified women, highlighting another potential channel behind gender disparities in the labormarket. Through a recruitment drive for a firm in Malawi, we look at men’s and women’s referral choices under different incentives and constraints. We find that men systematically refer few women, despite being able to refer qualified women when explicitly asked for female candidates. Performance pay also did not alter men’s tendencies to refer men. In addition, women did not refer enough high-quality women to offset men’s behavior.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)121-157
Number of pages37
JournalJournal of Labor Economics
Volume36
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 2018

Funding

sius Siow, among others, for helpful comments and discussions. All errors are our own. This material is based on work supported by the National Science Foundation under grant 1254380. Contact the corresponding author, Lori Beaman, at l-beaman@ northwestern.edu. Information concerning access to the data used in this paper is available as supplementary material online.

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Industrial relations
  • Economics and Econometrics

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