Can social media lead to labor market discrimination? Evidence from a field experiment
Matthieu Manant (matthieu.manant@u-psud.fr),
Serge Pajak (serge.pajak@gmail.com) and
Nicolas Soulié
Additional contact information
Matthieu Manant: RITM - Réseaux Innovation Territoires et Mondialisation - UP11 - Université Paris-Sud - Paris 11
Serge Pajak: RITM - Réseaux Innovation Territoires et Mondialisation - UP11 - Université Paris-Sud - Paris 11
Post-Print from HAL
Abstract:
In this paper, we investigate the role of social media as a source of information for recruiters to discriminate applicants. We set up a field experiment over a 12‐month period, involving more than 800 applications from two fictitious applicants which differed in their perceived origins, which is an information available only from their Facebook profiles. During the experiment, an unexpected change in the Facebook layout reduced the salience of the information available on social media profiles. Before this change, a significant 41.7% gap between the two applicants callback rates highlights that personal online profiles are used by recruiters as a source of information to discriminate against applicants of foreign origin. After the layout change that mitigates our signal, the difference in callback rates fades away. This result suggests that the screening conducted by the employers does not go beyond the main pages of profiles. It also illustrates that design choices made by online platforms may have important consequences on the extent of discrimination.
Date: 2019-03-25
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:
Published in Journal of Economics and Management Strategy, 2019, 28 (2), pp.225-246. ⟨10.1111/jems.12291⟩
There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.
Related works:
Journal Article: Can social media lead to labor market discrimination? Evidence from a field experiment (2019) 
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03116795
DOI: 10.1111/jems.12291
Access Statistics for this paper
More papers in Post-Print from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD (hal@ccsd.cnrs.fr).