Underrepresented Groups, Job Search, and Fear of Failure

Last registered on February 20, 2025

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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title

Underrepresented Groups, Job Search, and Fear of Failure

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0015394

Initial registration date

February 15, 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

February 20, 2025, 5:13 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

Alexandra Opanasets

Affiliation

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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name

Michelle Jiang

PI Affiliation

University of Massachusetts Boston

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Additional Trial Information

Status

In development

Start date

2025-10-01

End date

2026-09-30

Keywords

Behavior, Gender, Labor

Additional Keywords

JEL code(s)

Secondary IDs

Prior work

This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.

Abstract

Our proposed research seeks to address the following questions:

1) Do workers from underrepresented groups take disproportionate actions to avoid failure on the job, such as not applying to jobs with a higher risk of failure?
2) If so, is this because they anticipate discriminatory penalties for failure on the job, either for themselves or for others in their demographic group?

The proposed design is an online two-sided labor experiment with two sets of participants: workers and employers. Our outcome of interest is whether an individual worker chooses to apply for a job. Treatment in our setting randomly varies the potential consequences of a worker’s poor performance on the job, as well as an employer’s ability to discriminate based on a worker’s URM status. Consequences for poor performance will range from simple negative feedback to losing out on a potential second round of employment. The employer’s ability to discriminate will stem from whether the employer has information on the worker’s gender and race. We aim to observe if ‘application gaps’ between URMs and other workers change in magnitude or sign based on the potential consequences of poor performance on the job and.or the scope for discrimination to affect those consequences for workers.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Jiang, Michelle and Alexandra Opanasets. 2025. "Underrepresented Groups, Job Search, and Fear of Failure." AEA RCT Registry. February 20. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.15394-1.0

Sponsors & Partners

Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

Intervention Start Date

2025-10-01

Intervention End Date

2025-11-30

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

Our primary outcome of interest is whether an individual worker chooses to apply for a job (binary choice).

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

The experiment will proceed as follows: 'Worker' subjects make application decisions. Then, 'employer' subjects make hiring decisions. Hired workers perform the job, and then employers evaluate workers.

Workers will be randomly assigned to one of eight treatment arms. We have three randomized dimensions of treatment:

1) Rounds. Workers will fall into one of three groups: In 'Second Round Only', workers can only be hired for one round, and no other workers will be hired by the same employer after. In 'First Round Only', workers can only be hired once, but a different worker can be hired by the same employer for the second round. In 'Two Rounds', workers are hired for one round and their employer can choose whether to retain them or hire someone new for the second round.

2) Initial selection. Workers who choose to apply might be initially hired by a computer using 'Random Selection', or be selected by an employer participant under 'Employer Selection'.

3) Demographic Reveal. Under 'Demographic Reveal', the worker’s demographic information (gender and race) is revealed to each of their employers and prospective employers along with their score and their Prolific work history. Under 'No Demographic Reveal', only the worker’s anonymized quantitative attributes are revealed.

Not all combinations of dimensions (3 X 2 X 2 = 12 possible treatment cells) are necessary for measuring our mechanisms of interest; we will use only 7 of 12 possible combinations. We will also have an eighth treatment arm in which workers are guaranteed to be retained for a second round of employment. The selected treatment cells are illustrated in the attached table.

Experimental Design Details

Not available

Randomization Method

Randomization done by computer.

Randomization Unit

Individual

Was the treatment clustered?

Yes