There is substantial evidence that due to perceived childcare obligations, mothers are disadvantaged in labor markets. To what extent can childcare support ameliorate such a disadvantage? To answer this question, we ran a CV experiment in a large Indian city and examined whether indicating access to childcare support in a CV may offset the motherhood penalty associated with labor market entry. We randomly varied motherhood, as well as access to childcare in CVs sent to online applications for service sector jobs in Delhi. Indicating motherhood on a CV led to a 57% or 20 percentage point reduction in callback rates for interviews as compared to non-mothers. A simple indication of access to childcare support offsets the motherhood penalty by 20% or 4 percentage points. We interpret the findings in the Indian context and with respect to potential sources of discrimination.

Scams involving university degrees are flourishing in many emerging markets. Using a resume experiment in India, this paper studies the impact of gray degrees, or potentially bought academic credentials from questionable universities, on callback rates to job applications. The experiment varied the type of degree (no, gray, and authentic) in online applications to entry-level jobs that require no university qualification. We find that gray degrees increase callback rates by 42 percent or 8 percentage points relative to having no degree. However, we also document that gray degrees fare on average worse than authentic degrees. These empirical patterns are consistent with a model where employers have beliefs about the authenticity of degrees and are discounting gray-degree universities probabilistically. We discuss our findings with respect to the Indian context.

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