How Tinted Are Your Glasses? Gender Views, Beliefs and Recommendations in Hiring
The DEMS Economics Seminar series is proud to host
Fabio Tufano
(School of Business and Choice Research Centre — University of Leicester)
joint work with A. Hochleitner, G. Facchini, V. Rueda, and M. Eberhardt
ABSTRACT
We study gender gaps at different stages of the hiring process, focusing on recommendations and recruitment. First, we document that women receive fewer ‘ability’ and more ‘grindstone’ recommendation letters in the academic job market. Next, we conduct two experiments — with academic economists and an online college-educated sample — analyzing both recommendation and recruitment stages. While recruiters overall favor women, consistent with efforts to diversify hiring, some groups of recommenders write suboptimal letters for them, undermining the initial advantage. Finally, letter choices correlate with gender views and are driven by strategic but erroneous beliefs about the effectiveness of different letter types.
The seminar will be in presence, Room 4096 - Building U7