When Correspondence Studies Fail to Detect Hiring Discrimination

Age Discrimination in Hiring

“…And Neumark (1996) finds similar evidence in an audit study of sex discrimination that also included a callback stage. However, a recent study of discrimination in France against North Africans suggests that correspondence study evidence on callback rates may sometimes fail to detect evidence of discrimination (Cahuc et al, 2019). This conclusion is based on evidence that the observed callback rate is lower only in the private sector, while discriminatory preferences and beliefs are similar in the two sectors -which the authors interpret as similarly discriminatory hiring rates in both sectors.…”

Gender Preferences in Job Vacancies and Workplace Gender Diversity

“…Evidence from audit studies (e.g., Booth andLeigh, 2010, Kline et al (2021)) suggests that employer preferences tend to reinforce gender stereotypes and segregation. 2 As noted by Cahuc et al (2019), however, it may be difficult to infer the impacts of discriminatory preferences on hiring outcomes from the data that are collected in typical audit studies.…”