Wage subsidies and hiring chances for the disabled: some causal evidence

We evaluate the effectiveness of wage subsidies as a policy instrument to integrate disabled individuals into the labour market. To identify causal effects, we conduct a large-scale field experiment in Belgium. Our results show that the likelihood of a disabled candidate receiving a positive response to a job application is not positively influenced by revealing entitlement to the Flemish Supporting Subsidy

Labour market discrimination against former juvenile delinquents: evidence from a field experiment

In view of policy action to integrate ex-offenders into society, it is important to identify the underlying mechanisms of the negative relationship between criminal record on the one hand and later employment and earnings on the other hand. In this study, we identify hiring discrimination against former juvenile delinquents in a direct way. To this end, we conduct a field experiment in the Belgian labour market. We find that labour market discrimination is indeed a major barrier in the transition to work for former juvenile delinquents. Labour market entrants disclosing a history of juvenile delinquency get about 22 percent less callback compared to their counterparts without a criminal record. This discrimination is heterogeneous by the occupation for which one applies

Field experimental evidence on gender discrimination in hiring: biased as Heckman and Siegelman predicted?

Correspondence studies are nowadays viewed as the most compelling avenue to test for hiring discrimination. However, these studies suffer from one fundamental methodological problem, as formulated by Heckman and Siegelman (The Urban Institute audit studies: Their methods and findings. In M. Fix, and R. Struyk (Eds.), Clear and convincing evidence: Measurement of discrimination in America, 1993), namely the bias in their results in case of group differences in the variance of unobserved determinants of hiring outcomes. In this study, the authors empirically investigate this bias in the context of gender discrimination. The authors do not find significant evidence for the feared bias

The iceberg decomposition : a parsimonious way to map the health of labour markets

This article introduces the metaphor of the iceberg in the labour market. While policy in most OECD countries has historically focussed on reducing unemployment (the tip of the iceberg), the group of inactive people (below the waterline) is much larger. Therefore, we point to the clear limitations of the unemployment rate as the (single) key macro-economic indicator of the health of the labour market. A parsimonious dashboard approach utilising the unemployment-to-population ratio and the inactivity-to-population ratio as two highly appropriate and complementary measures is defended. We show that the ratio of these two indices varies greatly between countries, which calls for different policies for different countries

Facebook profile picture appearance affects recruiters’ first hiring decisions

We investigate whether the publicly available information on Facebook about job applicants affects employers’ hiring decisions. To this end, we conduct a field experiment in which fictitious job applications are sent to real job openings in Belgium. The only characteristic in which these candidates differ is the unique Facebook profile that can be found online with their name. Candidates with the most beneficial Facebook picture obtain approximately 38% more job interview invitations compared to candidates with the least beneficial picture. In addition, we find suggestive evidence for a higher effect of Facebook profile picture appearance on hiring chances when candidates are highly educated and when recruiters are female