Discrimination Against Persons with Disabilities in Recruitment: A Correspondence Study

2026-03-17

2026-09-30

Callback rate

We will measure several variants of the callback rate based on responses received via email or phone voicemail:

1. Explicit positive response from the employer (e.g., an invitation to an interview or to the next stage of the recruitment process)
2.Other response from the employer (e.g., a request for additional information)
3. Any response from the employer (e.g., a phone call without follow‑up information)
4. Explicit rejection
5. No response

For applicants with and without disabilities, we will report all outcomes separately, as well as in an aggregated form, coded as positive (categories 1–3) or negative (categories 4–5).

We will also measure heterogeneity by applicant gender, occupation type, and firm type..

We will use the job database provided by the Public Employment Services in Poland to identify office based job openings in large cities (with more than 100 000 inhabitants). The selected occupations will include office clerks, accountants and financial specialists, financial and business data analysts, and marketing and PR specialists. For each job posting, we will email two CVs from candidates with comparable characteristics (age, education, work experience, and skills). One candidate will indicate a disability (wheelchair user), and the other will not.

Not available

Randomization done by a computer

Job offer. For each job offer, the gender of the candidate pair will be randomized. Disability status, CV template, and CV content will also be randomly assigned.

No

No clustering is planned

1000 CVs emailed to 500 job openings

500 applications from candidates with disability
500 applications from candidates without disability