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Field Before After
Trial Status in_development completed
Abstract We conduct a correspondence test in the market for shared housing to identify the magnitude of ethnic and gender discrimination and the role of personal information posted on a social media platform. About 4,900 fictitious applications with a randomly assigned Turkish-, or German-sounding female or male name will be sent to vacant room ads. In addition, we randomly add a link to a social media profile to determine the effect of such personal information on callback rates. We carefully constructed these fictional social media accounts on Instagram for over the course of two years to make them as realistic as possible, conducting several surveys among young people to ensure that the profiles are close to reality with a sufficient number of followers. Unlike previous research, we can approximate whether landlords or roommates actually visit these profiles and exploit this information using statistics on profile visits and page impressions. In a second study, we vary the content on the profiles signaling religious beliefs and cultural orientation to identify determinants of ethnic discrimination and the role of social media information. In addition, we study how serving stereotypes of the minority or majority candidate affects callback rates, as well as how intentionally breaking stereotypes, e.g., using majority stereotypes on a minority member's social media profile and/or vice versa, affects ethnic and gender discrimination. We conduct a correspondence test in the market for shared housing to identify the magnitude of ethnic and gender discrimination and the role of personal information posted on a social media platform. About 4,900 fictitious applications with a randomly assigned Turkish-, or German-sounding female or male name will be sent to vacant room ads. In addition, we randomly add a link to a social media profile to determine the effect of such personal information on callback rates. We carefully constructed these fictional social media accounts on Instagram for over the course of two years to make them as realistic as possible, conducting several surveys among young people to ensure that the profiles are close to reality with a sufficient number of followers. Unlike previous research, we can approximate whether landlords or roommates actually visit these profiles and exploit this information using statistics on profile visits and page impressions.
Trial End Date December 31, 2023 December 31, 2022
Last Published January 20, 2023 12:40 PM May 17, 2023 02:16 PM
Study Withdrawn No
Intervention Completion Date January 31, 2022
Data Collection Complete Yes
Final Sample Size: Total Number of Observations 3,682
Is there a restricted access data set available on request? Yes
Restricted Data Contact [email protected]
Program Files No
Data Collection Completion Date January 19, 2022
Is data available for public use? No
Intervention End Date September 30, 2023 January 31, 2022
Primary Outcomes (End Points) Callback rates conditional on ethnicity, gender and (variation of) social media information Callback rates conditional on ethnicity, gender and social media information
Experimental Design (Public) We use a non-matched pair randomized controlled trial (correspondence test design) to test for ethnic and gender discrimination in the market for shared housing in Germany. To do this, we randomly vary the applicant’s name, which signals an ethnic minority or ethnic majority member, and we randomly vary gender. In addition, we vary the amount of information by randomly providing a link to a social media profile that contains additional information about the applicant. In a second study, we also vary the content of the social media accounts to test whether additional information signaling cultural identification and religious beliefs affect callback rates. We also want to find out how serving stereotypes of the minority or majority candidate affects callback rates, as well as how intentionally breaking stereotypes, e.g., using majority stereotypes on a minority member's social media profile and/or vice versa, affects ethnic and gender discrimination. We use a non-matched pair randomized controlled trial (correspondence test design) to test for ethnic and gender discrimination in the market for shared housing in Germany. To do this, we randomly vary the applicant’s name, which signals an ethnic minority or ethnic majority member, and we randomly vary gender. In addition, we vary the amount of information by randomly providing a link to a social media profile that contains additional information about the applicant.
Planned Number of Observations Study I: 4,960; Study II: 2,700 3,720
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms Study I: Assuming a 44% percent overall callback rate (from pre-study) we will send out approximately 620 applications for each of the eight treatment groups (immigrant/native*female/male*with/without social media info), resulting in 1,240 applications per treatment arm. Study II: Assuming a 40.3% percent overall callback rate (from Study I) we will send out approximately 677 applications for each of the four treatment groups (immigrant/native*with/without stereotypical social media profile), resulting in 1,354 applications per treatment arm. Assuming a 44% percent overall callback rate (from pre-study) we will send out approximately 620 applications for each of the eight treatment groups (immigrant/native*female/male*with/without social media info), resulting in 1,240 applications per treatment arm. Note that the initial sample size (see above) was higher in a previous version of this pre-registration because we decided to split the trial into two parts after the first trial was completed. We submitted a new pre-registration for the second study (see AEARCTR-0011322).
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