Gender and Race Sorting at the Application Interface

Abstract

We document gender and race sorting of candidates into various jobs at the point of initial application to a company. At this step of the hiring process, the firm has implemented a policy whereby organizational screeners’ discretion has been eliminated such that there is no opportunity for contact between hiring agents and applicants. Thus, the job choices studied here offer unique insight as they are uncontaminated by screeners’ steering of candidates toward gender- or race-typed jobs. Even in the absence of steering, we find clear patterns of gendered job choices that line up with gender stereotypes of job roles. Moreover, these gendered patterns recur both within individuals and within race groups. Comparing our findings to the pattern of job sorting in the external local labor market, we find that supply-side factors do not fully account for the levels of race and gender segregation observed in the open labor market. Although probably not the entire story, it is clear that supply-side gender sorting processes cannot be ruled out as important factors contributing to job sex segregation.