How Tinted Are Your Glasses? Gender Views, Beliefs and Recommendations in Hiring

Abstract

We study the gendered impact of recommendations at different stages of the hiring process. First, using a large sample of reference letters from the academic job market for economists, we document that women receive fewer ‘ability’ letters and more ‘grindstone’ letters. Next, we conduct two experiments — with academic economists and a broader, college-educated population — analyzing both the recommendation and recruitment stages. These experiments confirm that recommendations are gendered and impact recruitment. We also elicit gender views and beliefs about the effectiveness of different letter types, uncovering that these views, along with strategic behavior based on erroneous beliefs, explain referees’ letter choices. Finally, we decompose the gender gaps in recruitment into two components: one capturing differences in how candidates with identical qualities are treated; the other reflecting recruiters’ failure to account for gendered patterns in recommendations. Our findings suggest that this failure to recognize the gendered nature of reference letters perpetuates recruitment disparities and undermines efforts to enhance diversity in hiring.

Keywords: Gender, Recruitment, Diversity, Experiment

JEL Classification: J16, A11, D9