Age and the labor market for Hispanics in the United States: Covid post

Last registered on June 01, 2020

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Age and the labor market for Hispanics in the United States: Covid post
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0005917
Initial registration date
June 01, 2020

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
June 01, 2020, 4:09 PM EDT

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

Locations

Region

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
Texas A&M University

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
Universidad de las Americas
PI Affiliation
Texas A&M University

Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2019-08-08
End date
2021-07-31
Secondary IDs
Abstract
This study looks at the hireability of people age 35-75 with Hispanic and non-Hispanic first and last names using resumes for a clerical position and hiring manager and administrative assistant professionals from mTurk. We surveyed 125 participants before the COVID pandemic, 275 during the start of the COVID pandemic, but before shutdowns, and plan to survey 400 several months into the pandemic and shut-downs/reopening. We will compare age discrimination before and after the pandemic. We expect to see increased age discrimination because of the increased danger with age of COVID and because of stereotypes about technology use and age. We will compare discrimination against Hispanics before and after the shutdown, and do not have a prior about the sign. We will test different hypotheses about why discrimination could change during the pandemic. We will test that technology has become more important by determining if job histories and training that emphasize technology are more beneficial in the post-period. We ask questions in the pre- and post- period about how much supervision each applicant would need and expect that needing less supervision will become more important in the post-period. We provide information about PTA volunteerism in the pre- and post- period and predict that this signal will become more negative (less positive) in the post-period. We hypothesize that having a nice address could become more or less important-- on the one hand with remote work commuting time is less important, but on the other hand, having an indicator of reliable internet access could make it more important. We predict that a recent work gap will be less important as many high-quality workers are being laid off.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Lahey, Joanna , Roberto Mosquera and Alexis Weaver. 2020. "Age and the labor market for Hispanics in the United States: Covid post." AEA RCT Registry. June 01. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.5917-1.0
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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
This project consists of a survey experiment in mTurk in which participants are asked to rate a series of fictitious resumes. This will allow us to explore heterogeneity in outcomes by age for different kinds of Hispanic resumes. Resumes will include all possible combinations between Hispanic first and last names and white non-Hispanic first and last names. Participants will be asked to rate resumes for hireability for a clerical position. The analysis will center around individuals with high school education. Results will be compared from before the COVID-19 pandemic and during.
Intervention Start Date
2019-09-01
Intervention End Date
2020-12-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
To study discrimination against Hispanics across their lifetime and to look at changes before and during the COVID pandemic.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
Hireability is a 1-7 Likert Scale.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
We will also be testing to see if certain aspects, such as technology, health, and participants' financial situations, become more prevalent in discrimination against Hispanics during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
This project consists of a survey experiment implemented with individuals registered in Amazon Mechanical Turk (Turk). For this part, first, we will generate a large number of fictitious resumes (>=50000). To create these resumes we created lists of resume characteristics. these characteristics include first name, last name, address, telephone number, email provider, employment history, high school, labor skills, and volunteering.

To build the resume, we randomly draw one (or more for skills and work experience) item from each characteristic and put these items together in a template. This procedure renders realistic resumes that do not correspond to real people.

In the survey experiment, participants are shown a batch of 30 resumes selected randomly. We will ask participants to rate resumes for hireability for a clerical position. The survey will include other questions related to the resumes. Some questions for those participating in the study during the COVID-19 pandemic will be specifically about COVID-19.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
The computer randomizes characteristics across resumes.
Randomization Unit
The randomization is done at the resume level.
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
800 clusters. Clusters are equivalent to the number of participants. (Each participant looks at 30 resumes.)
Sample size: planned number of observations
24000 resumes
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
3750 resumes in the pre-period
8250 resumes in the transition
12000 resumes in the post-period
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Research Compliance and Biosafety Texas A&M University
IRB Approval Date
2020-05-26
IRB Approval Number
IRB2019-0316D

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