Open this publication in new window or tab >>2018 (English)In: International journal of manpower, ISSN 0143-7720, E-ISSN 1758-6577, Vol. 39, no 4, p. 534-549Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
Purpose
We investigate whether there is unequal treatment in hiring depending on whether a job applicant signals living in a bad (deprived) neighborhood or in a good (affluent) neighborhood.
Design/methodology/approach
We conducted a field experiment where fictitious job applications were sent to employers with an advertised vacancy. Each job application was randomly assigned a residential address in either a bad or a good neighborhood. The measured outcome is the fraction of invitations for a job interview (the callback rate).
Findings
We find no evidence of general neighborhood signaling effects. However, job applicants with a foreign background have callback rates that are 42 percent lower if they signal living in a bad neighborhood rather than in a good neighborhood. In addition, we find that applicants with commuting times longer than 90 minutes have lower callback rates, and this is unrelated to the neighborhood signaling effect.
Originality/value
Empirical evidence of causal neighborhood effects on labor market outcomes is scant, and causal evidence on the mechanisms involved is even more scant. We provide such evidence.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 2018
National Category
Economics
Research subject
Economy, Economics
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:lnu:diva-69178 (URN)10.1108/IJM-09-2017-0234 (DOI)000438870200003 ()2-s2.0-85049943130 (Scopus ID)
2017-12-112017-12-112020-10-13Bibliographically approved