Examining managers’ evaluation of resumes in a large publicly-listed Italian firm, we find that managers unintentionally discriminate against women and that exposing managers to their own bias closes the gender gap in resumes’ evaluation. We measure managers’ unconscious bias through the Gender-Career Implicit Association Test (IAT) and, akin to an incentivized resume rating experiment, we ask managers to rate the potential of hypothetical but realistic resumes for a managerial role. We find that managers give lower scores to female resumes compared to identical male resumes. This result is consistent with theories of implicit discrimination, as we find that the gender gap is larger when managers display stronger implicit bias and when time pressure and cognitive load increases. We also show that managers with stronger implicit bias spend less time reviewing female resumes, suggesting that gender gaps in attention may be a key mechanism behind managers’ discriminatory behavior. Finally, we show that sharing with a randomly selected group of managers their own IAT score before the rating exercise closes the gender gap in evaluation and attention.
Presented by:
Professor Paola Profeta, Bocconi University
Date & time:
3 May 2023 12:30 pm - 3 May 2023 13:30 pm
Venue:
Online.
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