Sick and tell: A field experiment analyzing the effects of an illness-related employment gap on the callback rate

Employment discrimination against Indigenous Peoples in the United States: Evidence from a field experiment

“…Names are most externally valid way to signal race, since names always need to be included, but names could be a weak signal or could signal socioeconomic status in addition to race (Fryer and Levitt 2004;Barlow and Lahey 2018;Gaddis 2017aGaddis , 2017b. On the other hand, disclosing minority status through work or volunteer experience (e.g., Tilcsik 2011;Ameri et al 2018;Namingit, Blankenau, and Schwab 2017) may be a stronger signal but may be less externally valid since minority groups may prefer not to signal group affiliation to avoid potential discrimination.…”

“…Ameri et al (2018) signal disability partly through a relevant volunteer experience as an accountant at a fictional disability group. Namingit, Blankenau, and Schwab (2017) disclose an illness-related gap in employment history partly through a volunteer experience (Cancer survivor's group) on a resume.…”

“…Our general approach follows previous studies of this nature (e.g., Pager, 2003;Bertrand and Mullainathan, 5 2004;Lahey, 2008;Neumark, Burn, and Button, 2019) by estimating hiring discrimination by comparing interview offer rates ("callbacks") by race. Since signaling Indigenous status is not straightforward, we use four different methods: first names for some Native Hawaiian applications, last names for some Native American applicants of Navajo ancestry, listing an Indigenous language along with English as mother tongues in a language section on the resume, or by mentioning Indigenous status in the description of a volunteer experience, mirroring Tilcsik (2011), Ameri et al (2018), and Namingit, Blankenau, and Schwab (2017).…”

Individual and family labor market impacts of chronic diseases

“…An experiment in the US was conducted to see whether signaling that a gap in employment is due to a chronic health condition leads to a higher callback rate [10]. The authors also sent out three types of fictitious resumes: newly unemployed, unexplained employment gap, and explained employment gap.…”

“…Research on firm hiring behavior has relied heavily on experiments in which the outcome is the callback rate [8], [9], [10]. However, a callback does not necessarily lead to a job offer, so future research should explore whether there are differences in other stages of the hiring process as well.…”