Determinants of Callbacks to Job Applications: An Audit Study
American Economic Review
vol. 106,
no. 5, May 2016
(pp. 314-18)
Abstract
We summarize findings from an audit study investigating how unemployment duration, age, and holding a low-level "interim" job affect the likelihood that experienced college-educated females applying for administrative support jobs receive a callback from potential employers. The results show no relationship between callback rates and unemployment duration. In contrast, workers age 50 and older and workers with an "interim" job are significantly less likely to receive callbacks. We also summarize disparate findings in the growing literature of resume-based audit studies of career histories, and discuss avenues in which the literature could achieve results that are more comparable and externally valid.Citation
Farber, Henry S., Dan Silverman, and Till von Wachter. 2016. "Determinants of Callbacks to Job Applications: An Audit Study." American Economic Review, 106 (5): 314-18. DOI: 10.1257/aer.p20161010Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- E24 Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
- E32 Business Fluctuations; Cycles
- J14 Economics of the Elderly; Economics of the Handicapped; Non-Labor Market Discrimination
- J22 Time Allocation and Labor Supply
- J23 Labor Demand
- J64 Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search