Do employers avoid hiring workers from poor neighborhoods? Experimental evidence from the real labor market

Abstract

We investigate whether employers avoid hiring workers who live in neighborhoods with low socio‐economic status and/or with long commuting times. In a large‐scale field experiment in the Swedish labor market, we sent more than 4,000 fictitious résumés, with randomly assigned information about the applicants' residential locations, to firms with advertised vacancies. Our findings show that commuting time has a negative effect on the likelihood of being contacted by an employer, while the socio‐economic status of a neighborhood does not appear to be important. These results offer guidance for policymakers who are responsible for reversing segregation patterns.