Reflections of Employers' Gender Preferences in Job Ads in India : An Analysis of Online Job Portal Data
Using online job portal data and probabilistic regression estimations, the paper investigates the explicit gender bias and salary gap in the Indian job market, reflected in more than 800,000 job recruitment advertisements. Exploring formal and info...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2018
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/548581522089881652/Reflections-of-employers-gender-preferences-in-job-ads-in-India-an-analysis-of-online-job-portal-data http://hdl.handle.net/10986/29559 |
| Summary: | Using online job portal data and
probabilistic regression estimations, the paper investigates
the explicit gender bias and salary gap in the Indian job
market, reflected in more than 800,000 job recruitment
advertisements. Exploring formal and informal sector
occupations, the study finds high existence of
employers' gender bias in hiring. Explicit gender
preferences are highly job specific, and it is common to
mention the preferred gender in job ads, which, in general,
favor men over women. Although ads for professional
occupations exhibit less explicit gender bias, they are not
gender neutral. In all types of professional jobs,
irrespective of the share of ads with preference for men or
women, on average, ads targeting men specify/offer much
higher salary. Employers in elementary sectors as well as
blue-collar jobs express more segregated gender preference.
The findings support the existing research that argues women
are more preferred in low-quality, low-status, typically
low-paid informal jobs. Targeting women for low-quality jobs
explains half of the mean offered salary gap specified in
ads; the rest is direct gender bias. The paper also suggests
that, with the rise of new technology and sectors, gender
bias in hiring in those new types of jobs is expected to decline. |
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