Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/106542 
Year of Publication: 
2014
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 8605
Publisher: 
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
This study explores how both gender and facial attractiveness affect job candidates' chances of obtaining interviews in China's dynamic Internet job board labor market. It examines how discrimination based on these attributes varies over occupation, location, and firms' ownership type and size. We employ a resume (correspondence) audit methodology. We establish the facial attractiveness of candidate photos via an online survey. 24,192 applications are submitted to 12,096 job postings across four occupations in 6 Chinese cities. We find sizable differences in the interview callback rates of attractive and unattractive job candidates. Job candidates with unattractive faces need to put in 33% more applications than their attractive counterparts to obtain the same number of interview callbacks. Women are preferred to men in three of our four occupations. Women on average need to put in only 91% as many applications as men to obtain the same number of interview callbacks.
Subjects: 
beauty
gender
field experiments
discrimination
Chinese firms
hiring
facial attractiveness
internet job boards
resume correspondence audit study
JEL: 
C93
J71
J23
O53
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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