Age and the labor market for Hispanics in the United States

Last registered on June 18, 2022
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Age and the labor market for Hispanics in the United States
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0009609
Initial registration date
June 17, 2022

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 18, 2022, 10:25 AM EDT

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

Locations

Country
United States of America
Region

Primary Investigator

Name
Roberto Mosquera
Affiliation
Universidad de las Americas
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Joanna Lahey
PI Affiliation
Texas A&M University
Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status
Completed
Start date
2019-09-02
End date
2022-06-01
Keywords
Lab, Labor
Additional Keywords
Race, ethnicity, Hispanic, labor discrimination, field experiment
JEL code(s)
J71, J15
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial is based on or builds upon one or more prior RCTs.
Abstract
We explore the labor market for Hispanic high school graduates in the United States by age using information from the US Census, American Community Survey, Current Population Survey, and three laboratory experiments. We find, in general, that the differences in outcomes for Hispanic and non-Hispanic high school graduates do not change across the lifecycle. Moving to a laboratory setting, we provided participants with randomized resumes for a clerical position that are on average equivalent except for name and age (as indicated by the date of high school graduation). In all three experiments, hypothetical applicants with Hispanic and non-Hispanic names were generally treated the same across the lifecycle by a student population, a population of human resources managers, and a more general population from mTurk. These results stand in contrast to earlier results that find strong differences by age in how resumes with Black and White names are treated.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Lahey, Joanna and Roberto Mosquera. 2022. "Age and the labor market for Hispanics in the United States." AEA RCT Registry. June 18. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.9609-1.0
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Intervention Start Date
2019-10-02
Intervention End Date
2020-07-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Resume ratings: participants were asked to rate the ability of the candidate to fulfill the position, using a 7-point Likert scale, with 7 as the most “hireable”
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
First, we re-analyze data from two previous eye-tracking experiments that asked students (Experiment 1) and human resources (HR) managers (Experiment 2) to rate resumes with randomized inputs for a clerical position while tracking their eyes with an eye-tracking device. We look for differences in ratings between candidates with a Hispanic last name and candidates with White last names. We test for these differences using a local polynomial smoother (lpolyci in STATA) and regressions to look for differences in means.

Second, used a large sample of mTurk managers, clerical workers, and the general population as our participant population and again asked participants to rate resumes for a clerical position. In this study, we expanded indicators of Hispanic status to include Hispanic first names in addition to last names, we added indicators on resumes to contradict or reinforce Hispanic stereotypes, and we asked questions about specific aspects of each worker such as the need for supervision and communication skills.

Finally, we complement Experiment 3 with another intervention in mTurk to ask more specific questions about the Hispanic status and socioeconomic status signaled by names.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
We created the resumes using Lahey and Beasley’s (2009) resume randomizer program and used a database of resume inputs drawn from actual resumes. The program randomly chooses from the database high school graduation date (to signal age), first name (to signal gender and race), last name (to signal ethnicity), home address, email address, high school attended previous work experience texts, additional training, and volunteer experience.
Randomization Unit
Randomization occurs in two steps. First, we randomly create resumes from a pool of resume characteristics. Then we randomly assign 30 resumes to each participant.
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
Experiment 1: 152 individuals
Experiment 2: 67 HR managers
Experiment 3: 1,068 individuals from mTurk
Experiment 4: 200 individuals from mTurk
Sample size: planned number of observations
Experiment 1: 6,080 resumes Experiment 2: 2,680 resumes Experiment 3: 32,040 resumes Experiment 4: 8,000 names
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
Experiments 1 and 2: 13 percent of the resumes had Hispanic last names and non-Hispanic first names
Experiments 3 and 4: 80 percent of the resumes have non-Hispanic first and last names, 10 percent have Hispanic first and last names, 5 percent have a non-Hispanic first name and Hispanic last name, and 5 percent have a Hispanic first name and non-Hispanic last name
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Texas A&M University IRB
IRB Approval Date
2019-08-07
IRB Approval Number
IRB2019-0316
Analysis Plan

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Yes
Data Collection Completion Date
Final Sample Size: Number of Clusters (Unit of Randomization)
Was attrition correlated with treatment status?
Final Sample Size: Total Number of Observations
Final Sample Size (or Number of Clusters) by Treatment Arms
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials