Labor market discrimination in Delhi: Evidence from a field experiment
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Author(s)
Banerjee, Abhijit
Bertrand, Marianne
Datta, Saugato
Mullainathan, Sendhil
Date Issued
March 2009
Journal
Journal of Comparative Economics
Publisher
Elsevier
Citation
Banerjee, Abhijit et al. “Labor market discrimination in Delhi: Evidence from a field experiment.” Journal of Comparative Economics 37.1 (2009): 14-27.
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
We study the role of caste and religion in India s new economy sectors software and call-
centers by sending 3160 ctitious resumes in response to 371 job openings in and around
Delhi (India) that were advertised in major city papers and online job sites. We randomly
allocate caste-linked surnames across resumes in order to isolate the e¤ect of caste on appli-
cants job-search outcomes. We nd no evidence of discrimination against non-upper-caste
(i.e. Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe, and Other Backward Caste) applicants for software
jobs. We do nd larger and signi cant di¤erences between callback rates for upper-castes and
Other Backward Castes (and to a lesser extent Scheduled Castes) in the case of call-center
jobs. There is no evidence of discrimination against Muslims for either of the two kinds of
jobs we apply for. Overall, the evidence suggests that applicants caste identities do not signi cantly a¤ect the callback decisions of rms in these rapidly-growing sectors of the Indian
economy
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Economics
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DOI of Published Version
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jce.2008.09.002
