2024 Fall Institute

Claire Daviss, PhD Candidate

Title: Mitigated or Magnified? Intersectional Gender and Race Inequities across Multistage Hiring Processes

Abstract: 

Scholars have long documented gender and race inequities in hiring outcomes, particularly in who gets called back for an interview. Yet advancements in theory and the creation of new data sources motivate a reorientation of this literature. I develop an intersectional research agenda for hiring inequities, which focuses on intersectional gender and race inequities, on large and small gender-race categories, and on comparisons across multiple stages in the hiring process. I leverage rare access to data from a large-scale applicant tracking system — used by more than 3,000 firms — to conduct an abductive investigation into hiring outcomes of gender-race categories at screening, selection, and negotiation stages. This study results in numerous novel findings and puzzles for future causal investigations. White men and White women have better hiring outcomes than most other gender-race categories across stages, and notably, inequities are greatest in the selection stage, in which hiring decision-makers make job offers to their top choices among called-back applicants. This study thus provides a more complete descriptive picture of gender and racial inequities in hiring, highlights targets for intervention, and aims to spark new lines of inquiry.