Gender Parity in Hiring

Last registered on January 30, 2025
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Gender Parity in Hiring
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0015284
Initial registration date
January 28, 2025

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
January 30, 2025, 11:00 AM EST

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

Locations

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Primary Investigator

Name
Gabriella Fleischman
Affiliation
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Mansa Saxena
PI Affiliation
Northwestern University
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Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2024-03-01
End date
2025-04-30
Keywords
Gender, Labor
Additional Keywords
JEL code(s)
J710, O120
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
In this project we empirically test the impact of soft affirmative action policies on workforce diversity. We partner with a hiring organization to randomize the advertisements they post publicly for a job during a large-scale recruitment drive across multiple regions. Some advertisements highlight women's satisfaction in the job, some advertisements highlight men's satisfaction in the job, and some advertisements highlight a general employee's satisfaction in the job (non-gender-specified). We also conduct a hypothetical randomized resume experiment with the recruiters, to understand which specific signals that drive hiring decisions. We take real applications from the recruitment drive, and randomize specific variables to test how these variable changes impact hypothetical hiring decisions and expected interview performance of the applicants (which we can compare with actual interview performance during the recruitment drive). This will allow us to show how these signals vary with and without soft affirmative action policies in place.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Fleischman, Gabriella and Mansa Saxena. 2025. "Gender Parity in Hiring." AEA RCT Registry. January 30. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.15284-1.0
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Recruitment experiment:
We partner with a hiring organization to randomize publicly displayed job advertisements across geographic areas. In control areas, the job advertisement includes an infographic that reports the percent of employees in the job who considered the job to be easier than they expected. In treated areas, the infographic reports the same statistic, but split by gender.

Resume experiment:
We use real applications from the recruitment drive in a resume experiment. We randomly vary several variables on the application. We then have reviewers score and rank nine mock applications. These reviewers are involved in recruitment with the partner firm in practice.
Intervention Start Date
2024-03-01
Intervention End Date
2024-04-01

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Recruitment experiment:
Hired
Shortlisted for a test and interview

Resume experiment:
Hypothetically shortlisted
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Recruitment experiment:
Test score (conditional on shortlisted)
Interview score (conditional on shortlisted)

Resume experiment:
Interview and test score guesses
Application rank order
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
Recruitment experiment:
We partner with a hiring organization to randomize publicly displayed job advertisements across 60 geographic areas for a recruitment drive in March 2024. In 30 control areas, the job advertisement includes an infographic that reports the percent of employees in the job who considered the job to be easier than they expected. In 30 treated areas, the infographic reports the same statistic, but split by gender. Each of these geographic areas are hiring for one position.

Resume experiment:
We use real applications from the March 2024 recruitment drive in a resume experiment. We randomly vary several variables on the application. We then have reviewers score and rank nine mock applications. These reviewers are involved in recruitment with the partner firm in practice.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
office computer
Randomization Unit
Recruitment experiment: geographic area (agricultural administration section)
Resume experiment: individual
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
60
Sample size: planned number of observations
Recruitment experiment: approximately 1,200 Resume experiment: approximately 90
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
Recruitment experiment: 30 treatment clusters, with roughly 10 observations per cluster; 30 control clusters, with roughly 10 observations per cluster
Resume experiment: 10 reviewers, who each review 9 applications (randomization is at the application level)
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Harvard University Area CUHS
IRB Approval Date
2024-02-01
IRB Approval Number
IRB23-1605
Analysis Plan