Research
Inequities in Multistage Hiring Processes
Conventional methods for estimating hiring inequities (e.g., audit studies and resume survey experiments) often focus on which applicants get called back for a job — but there may be more to the story. In this research, I use data from a large-scale applicant tracking to investigate gender and racial inequities at the screening stage (from application to callback), selection stage (from callback to offer), and negotiation stage (from offer to hire). I find that gender-race inequities are greatest in the selection stage, which calls for a reorientation of hiring research onto intersectional and multistage analyses.
Hiring the "Ideal Remote Worker"
Companies are increasingly offering remote or hybrid work arrangements to employees. But will these opportunities be equally accessible to all? This study examines employers' beliefs about how the "ideal remote worker" compares to ideal workers in traditional, in-person settings. Specifically, we explore employers' preferences for candidates who vary by gender and parental status using online survey experiments. Our study uses a novel approach, which we describe in a paper forthcoming at Sociological Methods and Research, for collecting digital trace data during online survey experiments. This work is done collaboratively with Emma Williams-Baron (Stanford) and Erin Macke (Stanford).
Interaction Spillover and Employers' Hiring Preferences
How do employers’ interactions with women or men shape their hiring preferences? In this study, we examine whether employers' interactions with women or men shape their preferences for prior workers, as well as other workers of the same gender as prior workers, drawing on data from an online labor marketplace. We find that employers prefer to rehire workers with whom they have previously interacted, and men are especially likely to benefit from prior interactions. Furthermore, we find that employers prefer to hire workers of the same gender as their prior workers. This work is done collaboratively with Ming D. Leung (UC Irvine).
The Contextual Effects of Unemployment
Unemployment has immense consequences for individuals’ health. But how unemployment affects health may depend on normative context — the extent to which unemployment is common (or rare) in individuals’ areas. In this study, done in collaboration with Florencia Torche (Stanford), we study how the negative effects of unemployment vary depending on state-level unemployment rates.