Tastes, expectations and gendered job - pilot

Last registered on January 14, 2023
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Tastes, expectations and gendered job - pilot
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0004571
Initial registration date
August 12, 2019

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
August 14, 2019, 8:57 AM EDT

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

Last updated
January 14, 2023, 5:24 AM EST

Last updated is the most recent time when changes to the trial's registration were published.

Locations

Country
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Region

Primary Investigator

Name
Alexia Delfino
Affiliation
Bocconi University
Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Status
Completed
Start date
2019-08-14
End date
2020-05-31
Keywords
Gender, Labor
Additional Keywords
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
The proposed project consists in a pilot of a field recruitment experiment. The project is a spin-off of the field experiment conducted in 2017 and registered on the AEA RCT registry under the title “Changing Collars? Social identity and selection in frontline jobs”. The past experiment aimed at disentangling two different channels through which social identity can affect men’s selection into female-dominated jobs: preferences for working with people of own gender and expectations of performance. Results from this first experiment suggest that, out of the two forces of interest, performance expectations matter more for men’s application behaviour. The current proposed project aims at testing the same channels in a male-dominated sector: website development and design. Do performance expectations matter more also for women’s selection into male-dominated jobs? In the experiment, a pool of 2000 freelancers will be invited to apply for a job in website development and design. They will be assigned to one of four treatment groups. The job will be presented exactly in the same way in all the treatments, expect for i) a photograph and ii) a piece of information about the quality of freelancers hired for similar jobs. The two conditions will be cross-randomized, for a total of 4 treatment groups. The main outcome variables will be whether freelancers apply, their quality and the quality of their application, answers to interviews questions and whether they are shortlisted among the top applicants. The sample size has been chosen through power analysis to be able to detect a minimum effect size in the change of application rates of 0.25 of a standard deviation for each condition. Freelancers will be chosen among the users of one freelancers website.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Delfino, Alexia. 2023. "Tastes, expectations and gendered job - pilot." AEA RCT Registry. January 14. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.4571-1.2
Former Citation
Delfino, Alexia. 2023. "Tastes, expectations and gendered job - pilot." AEA RCT Registry. January 14. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/4571/history/168675
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Intervention Start Date
2019-08-14
Intervention End Date
2019-10-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Application to the job, characteristics of applicants vs non applicants, quality of the application (assessed using interview questions), being shortlisted, job completion.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
In the experiment, a pool of 1600 to 2000 freelancers will be invited to apply for a job in website development and design. They will be assigned to one of four treatment groups. The job will be presented exactly in the same way in all the treatments, expect for i) a photograph and ii) a piece of information about the quality of freelancers hired for similar jobs. The photograph could be of a man or a woman. The text could say that 60% or 80% of freelancers hired for similar jobs got 5 stars by the clients. The two statistics are both true (thus there is no deception), but they refer to different job categories (as stated in the job posting at the bottom of the “intervention box”). The two conditions will be cross-randomized, for a total of 4 treatment groups.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Randomization done at the individual level in office using Stata. Stratification by gender, ethnicity and wage per hour.
Randomization Unit
Individual.
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
N/A
Sample size: planned number of observations
2000
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
500 people per treatment arm
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
LSE Ethics Committee
IRB Approval Date
2019-08-11
IRB Approval Number
N/A
Analysis Plan

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials