Neighborhood signaling effects, commuting time, and employment

Magnus Carlsson, Abdulaziz Abrar Reshid and Dan-Olof Rooth

International Journal of Manpower, 2018, vol. 39, issue 4, 534-549

Abstract: Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether there is unequal treatment in hiring depending on whether a job applicant signals living in a bad (deprived) neighborhood or in a good (affluent) neighborhood. Design/methodology/approach - The authors conducted a field experiment where fictitious job applications were sent to employers with an advertised vacancy. Each job application was randomly assigned a residential address in either a bad or a good neighborhood. The measured outcome is the fraction of invitations for a job interview (the callback rate). Findings - The authors find no evidence of general neighborhood signaling effects. However, job applicants with a foreign background have callback rates that are 42 percent lower if they signal living in a bad neighborhood rather than in a good neighborhood. In addition, the authors find that applicants with commuting times longer than 90 minutes have lower callback rates, and this is unrelated to the neighborhood signaling effect. Originality/value - Empirical evidence of causal neighborhood effects on labor market outcomes is scant, and causal evidence on the mechanisms involved is even more scant. The paper provides such evidence.

Keywords: Discrimination; Field experiment; Commuting time; Correspondence study; Neighbourhood signalling effects; Neighbourhood stigma (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eme:ijmpps:ijm-09-2017-0234

DOI: 10.1108/IJM-09-2017-0234

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