Labor market discrimination based on gender and socioeconomic level of the place of residence : a randomized experiment in Argentina

Abstract

This papers studies the presence of discrimination in terms of gender and socioeconomic level of the place of residence in Argentina. In order to assess the existence of discrimination in these dimensions, we submited approximately 2700 fictitious Curriculum Vitae (CV) for real job vacancies published daily in an important Argentine job-search website. A set of realistic and representative resumes without effectively using resumes that belong to actual job seekers, which were equivalent in terms of qualifications and employment experience were sent out, varying the gender and residential area. We estimated a binary choice model to identify differences in callbacks depending on gender and socioeconomic level of the place of residence. A simple descriptive analysis of our data and also our formal econometric estimations do not suggest evidence of discrimination based on gender. However, our results do suggest evidence of discrimination.