The effects of targeted messages to businesses about discrimination in hiring (WWY)

Project holders : 

• Mirna Safi (CRIS, LIEPP)
• Morgane Laouenan (Université Paris 1, LIEPP)

Project description: 

While discrimination in hiring, particularly the one that is related to origin, is still a concern, the ways to put an end to it remain under-studied. In an attempt to fill this gap, the project aims to test targeted interventions that are likely to reduce firms' discriminatory practices at a very limited cost. Discrimination in hiring is measured in a set of large companies using “testing" methods, i.e. by comparing the callback rates following the sending of fictitious CVs with comparable content but different names suggesting different origins. At the end of a first phase of testing, we will constitute three groups of firms. In the first group, firms are informed that their recruitments have been monitored and they are informed of their measured level of discrimination. In the second group,firms are informed that they will be tested in the future. The last group of firms does not receive any message. Drawing on the ongoing “testing”, we then examine how discrimination evolves in the short and medium term in each group of firms.

Research team : 

Thomas Breda (PSE, CNRS)

Nicolas Jacquemet (Université Paris )

Roland Rathelot (Ensae)

Joyce Sultan (IPP) 

Poster of the project - June 2023