Xenophobia or Immigration Policies? A Field Experiment on Hiring Discrimination of High-Skilled Immigrants

Last registered on April 13, 2023

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Xenophobia or Immigration Policies? A Field Experiment on Hiring Discrimination of High-Skilled Immigrants
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0010225
Initial registration date
April 10, 2023

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
April 13, 2023, 4:17 PM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

Region
Region

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
Mercatus Center at George Mason University

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
Mercatus Center at George Mason University
PI Affiliation
Mercatus Center at George Mason University
PI Affiliation
Mercatus Center at George Mason University
PI Affiliation
UCLA

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2023-05-01
End date
2023-09-01
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
A substantial share of undergraduate students in the United States are citizens of other countries. This paper investigates if and why many of these international students struggle in the labor market. We implement a resume field experiment in both the United States and Canada, where we send thousands of fictitious resumes to potential employers and randomize ethnicity, immigration status, and other characteristics of applicants.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Farren, Michael et al. 2023. "Xenophobia or Immigration Policies? A Field Experiment on Hiring Discrimination of High-Skilled Immigrants." AEA RCT Registry. April 13. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.10225-1.0
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
N/A
Intervention (Hidden)
N/A
Intervention Start Date
2023-05-01
Intervention End Date
2023-09-01

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Call-back rates to job postings in the U.S. and in Canada
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
We are tracking the call-back rates for our fictitious resumes

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
Our field experiment will examine the difference in callback rates received from applications to internet job postings by fictitious foreign-born and American-born applicants. The immigration residency status of these immigrants will include students on temporary education visa, lawful permanent residents, and naturalized citizens. We will vary the perceived origin/ethnicity the applicants using signals provided by Hispanic-, Chinese-, Indian-, and white-sounding names (male). We also randomly assign the following characteristics: the post-secondary institution, work and internship experience, awards and extracurricular campus activities, GPA, and graduation year. The job vacancies to which our fictitious applicants will apply are in the computer science industry. We will employ an approach similar to matched-pairs by applying to each selected job opening with a set of three resumes. The same experiment will be carried out in Canada.
Experimental Design Details
Our experiment will employ an approach similar to matched-pairs by applying to each selected job opening with a set of three resumes. We plan to apply to 2,000 job openings in the U.S. and 2,000 in Canada over the course of 25 weeks, producing 12,000 data points for analysis. We will update these data collection goals following the completion of a pilot study and consequent power analysis.
The resume triplets will be matched as follows. In the United States:
● Resume Type 1- Applicant will list their status as a citizen.
● Resume Type 2- Applicant will list their status as permanent resident.
● Resume Type 3 - Applicant will list their F-1 visa status.
In Canada:
● Resume Type 1- Applicant will list their status as a citizen.
● Resume Type 2- Applicant will list their status as permanent resident.
● Resume Type 3 - Applicant will list their status as an international student or list their
post-graduation work permit (PGWP) (when relevant).

Furthermore, we will vary the perceived cultural origin of each applicant (using their name) across four types of applicant sets (domestic White-sounding names, non-domestic Indian-sounding names, non-domestic Chinese-sounding names, non-domestic Hispanic-sounding names). Given prior research on the sensitivity of correspondence studies to name selection, the names selected will be chosen from those previously tested by researchers to: (1) confirm they are perceived as ethnically distinct and (2) to mitigate the extent to which socioeconomic-based naming practices may bias racial perceptions. The White-, Hispanic-, Chinese-, and Indian-sounding names will be based on those examined by Gaddis et. al (2019).
Randomization Method
Randomization done in office through an online tool (Resume randomizer)
Randomization Unit
Individual resumes
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
N/A
Sample size: planned number of observations
Aiming for 12,000 (subject to how the pilot goes)
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
Aiming for 12,000 (subject to how the pilot goes)
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
To revisit after pilot
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Pearl IRB
IRB Approval Date
2022-10-07
IRB Approval Number
Protocol #22-MCTR-102

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials