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Sorting through affirmative action: Three field experiments in Colombia

Sorting through affirmative action: Three field experiments in Colombia
Sorting through affirmative action: Three field experiments in Colombia
The use of affirmative action policies to promote female employment remains debated. Do affirmative action policies attract female applicants, and does that come at the expense of deterring highly qualified male applicants? In three field experiments in Colombia, we compare job seekers who are informed of affirmative action selection criteria before they apply with those who are told after applying. We find that the gains in attracting female applicants far outweigh the losses in male applicants. Moreover, our results indicate that affirmative action does not decrease the quality of the top 15th percentile of the pool of applicants.
0734-306X
437-478
Ibanez, Marcela
271c5fc2-bf84-4b49-9520-30ff7528a88a
Riener, Gerhard
8e8e27a6-4931-4e70-b223-688f3fd616c1
Ibanez, Marcela
271c5fc2-bf84-4b49-9520-30ff7528a88a
Riener, Gerhard
8e8e27a6-4931-4e70-b223-688f3fd616c1

Ibanez, Marcela and Riener, Gerhard (2018) Sorting through affirmative action: Three field experiments in Colombia. Journal of Labor Economics, 36 (2), 437-478. (doi:10.1086/694469).

Record type: Article

Abstract

The use of affirmative action policies to promote female employment remains debated. Do affirmative action policies attract female applicants, and does that come at the expense of deterring highly qualified male applicants? In three field experiments in Colombia, we compare job seekers who are informed of affirmative action selection criteria before they apply with those who are told after applying. We find that the gains in attracting female applicants far outweigh the losses in male applicants. Moreover, our results indicate that affirmative action does not decrease the quality of the top 15th percentile of the pool of applicants.

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More information

Accepted/In Press date: 3 April 2017
e-pub ahead of print date: 28 February 2018

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 479599
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/479599
ISSN: 0734-306X
PURE UUID: 3d4dcb5b-6b33-4ef4-abe6-eb3ed4b77386
ORCID for Gerhard Riener: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-1056-2034

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Date deposited: 26 Jul 2023 16:40
Last modified: 17 Mar 2024 04:18

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Contributors

Author: Marcela Ibanez
Author: Gerhard Riener ORCID iD

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