Gender-targeted job ads in the recruitment process: Facts from a Chinese job board

Peter Kuhn*, Kailing Shen, Shuo Zhang

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    16 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    We study how explicit employer requests for applicants of a particular gender enter the recruitment process on a Chinese job board, focusing on two questions: First, to what extent do employers’ requests affect the gender mix of a firm's applicant pool? Second, how ‘hard’ are employers’ stated gender requests– are they essential requirements, soft preferences, or something in between? Using internal data from a Chinese job board, we estimate that an explicit request for men raises men's share in the applicant pool by 14.6 percentage points, or 26.4%; requests for women raises the female applicant share by 24.6 percentage points, or 55.0%. Men (women) who apply to gender-mismatched jobs also experience a substantial call-back penalty of 24 (43) percent. Thus, explicit gender requests do shape applicant pools, and signal a substantial but not absolute preference for the requested gender.

    Original languageEnglish
    Article number102531
    JournalJournal of Development Economics
    Volume147
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Nov 2020

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'Gender-targeted job ads in the recruitment process: Facts from a Chinese job board'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this