Systematic Discrimination in China: Evidence from Audit Study

We will conduct a resume correspondence study, randomly assigning gender and educational background to job applications submitted to a large number of vacancies at major publicly listed firms.

2024-11-01

2026-07-31

The key outcome of interest is whether a job applicant receives a positive response from an employer via email, phone call, or text message.

We operationalize employers' responses to job applications by measuring their progressive engagement with applicants. Specifically, we examine the probability of being contacted by employers within 60 days of application submission. Employer responses are categorized into four distinct outcomes, each represented as a binary variable:

\begin{itemize}
\item \textbf{Interest}: This variable takes a value of 1 if the applicant's resume is marked as showing "interest" by the HR team on the recruitment platform, and 0 otherwise.

\item \textbf{Follow-up}: This variable is set to 1 if the employer requests additional materials or information from the applicant, either via email or through the recruitment platform's mobile app, and 0 otherwise.

\item \textbf{Callback}: This variable equals 1 if the applicant receives an interview invitation or a direct phone call from the employer, either to conduct an immediate interview or to inquire further about the applicant's qualifications, and 0 otherwise.

\item \textbf{Rejection}: This variable is set to 1 if the employer marks the applicant as "Not suitable" without any prior interaction. However, if the employer marks the applicant as "Not suitable" after attempting to contact the applicant and receiving no response, the rejection is coded as 0.

The experiment requires several careful design choices, including the design of CVs, how to identify vacancies and submit applications, how to measure callback. We randomly assign applicants to one of four types (Male/Female× (non) Elite Universities) within each vacancy.
Group 1: Male and Elite University
Group 2: Male and non-Elite University
Group 3: Female and Elite University
Group 4: Female and non-Elite University
We will carefully track employers’ responses to each application. After receiving the callback, we will record it and inform the employers that the fictitious applicants will be no longer available for this job vacancy.
Please refer to the attached document for detail description of the research design of this study.

Not available

All resume characteristics will be randomly assigned by computer as part of our resume generation software.

Resumes

No

188 target firm, about 1048 job vacancies, four resumes/applicants for each job vacancies.

more than 20,000 job applications.

The applicant will be equally divided across 4 treatment groups.
Group 1: Male and Elite University, sent to at least 1048 vacancies
Group 2: Male and non-Elite University, sent to at least 1048 vacancies
Group 3: Female and Elite University, sent to at least1048 vacancies
Group 4: Female and non-Elite University, sent to at least 1048 vacancies

minimum of 1048 vacancies needed to detect the effect size at adjusted significance level of 0.00833 (0.05/6) and power of 0.80.