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Using Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) microdata over the 1980–2010 period, we provide new empirical evidence on the extent of and trends in the gender wage gap, which declined considerably during this time. By 2010, conventional human capital variables taken together explained little of the gender wage gap, while gender differences in occupation and industry continued to be important. Moreover, the gender pay gap declined much more slowly at the top of the wage distribution than at the middle or bottom and by 2010 was noticeably higher at the top. We then survey the literature to identify what has been learned about the explanations for the gap. We conclude that many of the traditional explanations continue to have salience. Although human-capital factors are now relatively unimportant in the aggregate, women's work force interruptions and shorter hours remain significant in high-skilled occupations, possibly due to compensating differentials. Gender differences in occupations and industries, as well as differences in gender roles and the gender division of labor remain important, and research based on experimental evidence strongly suggests that discrimination cannot be discounted. Psychological attributes or noncognitive skills comprise one of the newer explanations for gender differences in outcomes. Our effort to assess the quantitative evidence on the importance of these factors suggests that they account for a small to moderate portion of the gender pay gap, considerably smaller than, say, occupation and industry effects, though they appear to modestly contribute to these differences.

As in economics, racial discrimination has long been a focus of research in sociology. Yet the disciplines traditionally have differed in how they approach the topic. While some studies in recent years show signs of cross-disciplinary influence, exposing more economists to sociological perspectives on racial discrimination would benefit both fields. We offer six propositions from the sociology of racial discrimination that we believe economists should note. We argue that independent of taste and statistical discrimination, economists should study institutional discrimination; that institutional discrimination can take at least two forms, organizational and legal; that in both forms the decisions of a contemporary actor to discriminate can be immaterial; that institutional discrimination is a vehicle through which past discrimination has contemporary consequences; that minor forms of everyday interpersonal discrimination can be highly consequential; and that whether actors perceive they have experienced discrimination deserves attention in its own right.

Recent research has found widespread discrimination by hosts against guests of certain races in online marketplaces. In this paper, we explore ways to reduce such discrimination using online reputation systems. We conducted four randomized field experiments among 1,801 hosts on Airbnb by creating fictitious guest accounts and sending accommodation requests to them. We find that requests from guests with African American–sounding names are 19.2 percentage points less likely to be accepted than those with white-sounding names. However, a positive review posted on a guest’s page significantly reduces discrimination: when guest accounts receive a positive review, the acceptance rates of guest accounts with white- and African American–sounding names are statistically indistinguishable. We further show that a nonpositive review and a blank review without any content can also help attenuate discrimination, but self-claimed information on tidiness and friendliness cannot reduce discrimination, which indicates the importance of encouraging credible peer-generated reviews. Our results offer direct and clear guidance for sharing-economy platforms to reduce discrimination. This paper was accepted by Vishal Gaur, operations management.

Understanding whether labor market discrimination explains inferior labor market outcomes for many groups has drawn the attention of labor economists for decades—at least since the publication of Gary Becker’s The Economics of Discrimination in 1957. The decades of research on discrimination in labor markets began with a regression-based “decomposition” approach, asking whether raw wage or earnings differences between groups—which might constitute prima facie evidence of discrimination—were in fact attributable to other productivity-related factors. Subsequent research—responding in large part to limitations of the regression-based approach—moved on to other approaches, such as using firm-level data to estimate both marginal productivity and wage differentials. In recent years, however, there has been substantial growth in experimental research on labor market discrimination—although the earliest experiments were done decades ago. Some experimental research on labor market discrimination takes place in the lab. But far more of it is done in the field, which makes this particular area of experimental research unique relative to the explosion of experimental economic research more generally. This paper surveys the full range of experimental literature on labor market discrimination, places it in the context of the broader research literature on labor market discrimination, discusses the experimental literature from many different perspectives (empirical, theoretical, and policy), and reviews both what this literature has taught us thus far, and what remains to be done.

Public attitudes and policies toward LGBTQ individuals have improved substantially in recent decades. Economists are actively shaping the discourse around these policies and contributing to our understanding of the economic lives of LGBTQ individuals. In this paper, we present the most up-to-date estimates of the size, location, demographic characteristics, and family structures of LGBTQ individuals in the United States. We describe an emerging literature on the effects of legal access to same-sex marriage on family and socioeconomic outcomes. We also summarize what is known about the size, direction, and sources of wage differentials related to variation in sexual orientation and gender identity. We conclude by describing a range of open questions in LGBTQ economics.

Despite legislation on diversity in the workplace, people with disabilities still do not experience the same access to work opportunities as do their counterparts without disabilities. Many employers have been shown to harbor sincere yet ill-founded views about the work-related abilities of people with disabilities; these negative views are often a result of interrelated concerns that permeate the entire employment cycle. In this paper, we provide evidence-based responses to 11 specific concerns that employers have about people with disabilities, from pre-employment and entry experiences to the final dissolution of the employment relationship. At each stage of the employment cycle, we summarize and evaluate the relevant empirical evidence and provide recommendations for organizations committed to creating more effective, equitable, and inclusive workplaces for all individuals. We also suggest avenues for future research.

We review the empirical literature in economics on discrimination in the labor market and criminal justice system, focusing primarily on discrimination by race. We then discuss theoretical models of taste-based discrimination, particularly models of frictional labor markets and models of statistical discrimination, including recent work on invalid statistical discrimination. We explore and evaluate the evidence for and against these theories. Although there is substantial evidence of the existence of discrimination, little is known about the extent to which disparities are driven by discrimination. Finally, we argue that economists miss the important self-enforcing relationship between disparities and discrimination and the effect of disparities in one domain on discrimination in other domains.

We investigate whether personal information posted by job candidates on social media sites is sought and used by prospective U.S. employers. We create profiles for job candidates on popular social networks, manipulating information protected under U.S. laws, and submit job applications on their behalf to more than 4,000 employers. We estimate employer search activity and bias in interview callbacks. We find evidence of employers searching online for the candidates. At the national level, we find no significant difference in the callback rates for a Muslim versus a Christian candidate, or for a gay versus a straight candidate. However, employers in Republican areas exhibit significant bias against the Muslim candidate relative to the Christian candidate. This bias is significantly larger than the bias in Democratic areas. The results on callback bias are robust to using state- and county-level data, to controlling for firm, job, and geographical characteristics, to including additional interaction effects in the empirical specification, and to several estimation strategies. The results suggest that the online disclosure of certain personal traits can influence the hiring decisions of some U.S. employers, but the likelihood of hiring discrimination via online searches varies across employers. This paper was accepted by Chris Forman, information systems.

Gender differences in task allocations may sustain vertical gender segregation in labor markets. We examine the allocation of a task that everyone prefers be completed by someone else (writing a report, serving on a committee, etc.) and find evidence that women, more than men, volunteer, are asked to volunteer, and accept requests to volunteer for such tasks. Beliefs that women, more than men, say yes to tasks with low promotability appear as an important driver of these differences. If women hold tasks that are less promotable than those held by men, then women will progress more slowly in organizations.

Algorithmic decision-making is becoming increasingly common as a new source of advice in HR recruitment and HR development. While firms implement algorithmic decision-making to save costs as well as increase efficiency and objectivity, algorithmic decision-making might also lead to the unfair treatment of certain groups of people, implicit discrimination, and perceived unfairness. Current knowledge about the threats of unfairness and (implicit) discrimination by algorithmic decision-making is mostly unexplored in the human resource management context. Our goal is to clarify the current state of research related to HR recruitment and HR development, identify research gaps, and provide crucial future research directions. Based on a systematic review of 36 journal articles from 2014 to 2020, we present some applications of algorithmic decision-making and evaluate the possible pitfalls in these two essential HR functions. In doing this, we inform researchers and practitioners, offer important theoretical and practical implications, and suggest fruitful avenues for future research.