Race, Self-Selection, and the Job Search Process

Pager, Devah; Pedulla, David S.

doi:10.1086/681072

Cited by 115 publications

(82 citation statements)

References 80 publications

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“…Although extant research acknowledges that processes on both sides of the market might contribute to women's underrepresentation in certain jobs, it rarely attempts to disentangle their relative contributions (for exceptions, see Barbulescu andBidwell 2013, Fernandez andCampero 2015). A crucial problem is that of job seekers anticipating demand-side discrimination: if pre-emptive self-steering is at play, then individual behaviors that look like supply choices may instead be due-at least in part-to demand-side processes (Goldsmith et al 2004;Pager and Pedulla 2015). Our paper makes some progress on this front by exploiting a feature of the executive labor market that is atypical of most other employment settings: most candidates do not apply for jobs.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…If people avoid pursuing certain jobs because they expect to be discriminated against, then the candidate pool will not only reflect supply-side choices, but will also be influenced by expected discriminatory behavior by demandside screeners (cf. Goldsmith et al 2004;Barbulescu and Bidwell 2013;Pager and Pedulla 2015).…”

Section: Gender Inequality In the Executive Labor Marketmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Indeed, Storvik and Schone (2008) argue that this is the case in their study of barriers to women's advancement in Norway's state bureaucracy. To the extent that women engage in such pre-emptive behavior, researchers can develop only limited insight regarding what their supply-side choices would have been in the absence of anticipated discrimination (for similar arguments, see Goldsmith et al 2004;Barbulescu and Bidwell 2013;Pager and Pedulla 2015). The problem is exacerbated when one considers that women may harbor biased self-assessments of their own abilities that could, in turn, affect their decisions to pursue certain jobs (Correll 2001(Correll , 2004.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Bending the Pipeline? Executive Search and Gender Inequality in Hiring for Top Management Jobs

2016

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We study the sources of women's underrepresentation in hiring for top management jobs, by focusing on the context of executive search. Using data that include proprietary information on 10,970 individuals considered by a search firm, we examine the sources of the low proportion of women placed in senior roles. Contrary to received wisdom, we find limited evidence that demand-side screeners strongly contribute to gender disadvantage in this setting. What gender differences exist tend to play out at the start of the hiring process and are driven both by supplyside and demand-side actors. Once considered for a position, women are no less likely than men to be hired-though they are slightly less likely to be interviewed by the search firm. Our findings highlight the theoretical importance of disentangling candidates' "self-steering" behavior from the "pipeline bending" of hiring agents. We discuss the implications of our results for understanding gender inequality at upper echelons of the labor market.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Gender Inequality In the Executive Labor Marketmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Bending the Pipeline? Executive Search and Gender Inequality in Hiring for Top Management Jobs

2016

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“…Although we do not know the magnitude of their influence overall, white workers may help exclude racial minorities and women from advantageous networks that result in job leads or opportunities (McGuire 2000), or white male employers may reserve positions for other white men, as indicated in audit studies on low-wage markets (Pager 2003;Pager, Western, and Bonikowski 2009). On the other hand, black men may apply to fewer male-dominated jobs in anticipation of higher racial exclusion and mistreatment (Pager and Pedulla 2015).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Man Up, Man Down: Race-ethnicity and the Hierarchy of Men in Female-dominated Work

Yavorsky¹,

Cohen²,

Ye³

2016

Preprint

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Scholars have largely overlooked the significance of race and socioeconomic status in determining which men traverse gender-boundaries into female-dominated, typically devalued, work. Examining the gender composition of the jobs that racial minority men occupy provides critical insights into mechanisms of broader racial disparities in the labor market -in addition to stalled occupational desegregation trends between men and women. Using nationally representative data from the three-year American Community Survey (2010-2012), we examine racial/ethnic and educational differences in which men occupy gender-typed jobs. We find that racial minority men are more likely than white men to occupy female-dominated jobs at all levels of education-except highly-educated Asian/Pacific Islander men-and that these patterns are more pronounced at lower levels of education. These findings have implications for broader occupational inequality patterns among men as well as between men and women.

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“…Previous studies have highlighted minority job seekers' use of informal job referral networks (Smith, 2005) and their attempts to cast a relatively wide net in their job search to reach at least some fraction of non-discriminatory employers (Pager and Pedulla, 2015). But the literature has largely overlooked a distinct and potentially critical action that minorities might take to try to avoid anticipated discrimination: changing how they present themselves-especially in relation to racial cues-when applying for jobs.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Whitened Résumés

Kang

DeCelles

Tilcsik

et al. 2016

Administrative Science Quarterly

319

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Using interviews, a laboratory experiment, and a ré sumé audit study, we examine racial minorities' attempts to avoid anticipated discrimination in labor markets by concealing or downplaying racial cues in job applications, a practice known as ''ré sumé whitening.'' Interviews with racial minority university students reveal that while some minority job seekers reject this practice, others view it as essential and use a variety of whitening techniques. Building on the qualitative findings, we conduct a lab study to examine how racial minority job seekers change their ré sumé s in response to different job postings. Results show that when targeting an employer that presents itself as valuing diversity, minority job applicants engage in relatively little ré sumé whitening and thus submit more racially transparent ré sumé s. Yet our audit study of how employers respond to whitened and unwhitened ré sumé s shows that organizational diversity statements are not actually associated with reduced discrimination against unwhitened ré sumé s. Taken together, these findings suggest a paradox: minorities may be particularly likely to experience disadvantage when they apply to ostensibly pro-diversity employers. These findings illuminate the role of racial concealment and transparency in modern labor markets and point to an important interplay between the self-presentation of employers and the selfpresentation of job seekers in shaping economic inequality.

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Race, Self-Selection, and the Job Search Process

Cited by 115 publications

References 80 publications

Bending the Pipeline? Executive Search and Gender Inequality in Hiring for Top Management Jobs

Bending the Pipeline? Executive Search and Gender Inequality in Hiring for Top Management Jobs

Man Up, Man Down: Race-ethnicity and the Hierarchy of Men in Female-dominated Work

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