Doomed to Failure? Gender Discrimination in the Job Market for College Graduates in China

In this paper, we examine employment-related gender discrimination during an initial stage of the hiring process via a focus on recent college graduates in China. By examining firms’ responses to fictitious resumes with randomly generated information on gender and other key attributes of applicants (e.g., school reputation, student’s academic achievement, and leadership experiences), we are able to separate the effect of gender on a student’s potential for getting an on-site interview from confounding effects of other factors. We find that female applicants, on average, are less likely to be invited by hiring firms to on-site interviews than male applicants – all other things being equal. Furthermore, school reputation, a student’s academic achievement and leadership experiences play no role in narrowing the gender disparity. This suggests that hiring firms do not compromise on their gender preference – even in the context of high achievement of a female applicant.