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Book/Printed Material Will job testing harm minority workers?

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Title

  • Will job testing harm minority workers?

Summary

  • "Because minorities typically fare poorly on standardized tests, job testing is thought to pose an equity-efficiency trade-off: testing improves selection but reduces minority hiring. We evaluate this trade-off using data from a national retail firm whose 1,363 stores switched from informal to test-based worker screening. We find that testing yielded more productive hires -- raising median tenure by 10 percent and reducing the frequency of firing for cause. Consistent with prior research, minorities performed significantly worse on the test. Yet, testing had no measurable impact on minority hiring, and productivity gains were uniformly large among minorities and non-minorities. We show formally that these results imply that employers were effectively statistically discriminating prior to the introduction of testing -- that is, their screening practices already accounted for expected productivity differences between applicant groups. Consequently, testing improved selection of both minority and non-minority applicants, but did not alter the racial composition of hiring"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site.

Names

  • Autor, David H.
  • Scarborough, David
  • National Bureau of Economic Research

Created / Published

  • Cambridge, MA : National Bureau of Economic Research, c2004.

Headings

  • -  Employment tests
  • -  Minorities--Employment--United States
  • -  Discrimination in employment--United States

Notes

  • -  System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader.
  • -  Mode of access: World Wide Web.
  • -  Title from PDF file as viewed on 1/14/2005.
  • -  Also available in print.
  • -  Includes bibliographical references.

Call Number/Physical Location

  • HB1

Digital Id

Library of Congress Control Number

  • 2005615509

Access Advisory

  • Unrestricted online access

Online Format

  • image
  • pdf

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Cite This Item

Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.

Chicago citation style:

Autor, David H, David Scarborough, and National Bureau Of Economic Research. Will Job Testing Harm Minority Workers?. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2004. Pdf. https://www.loc.gov/item/2005615509/.

APA citation style:

Autor, D. H., Scarborough, D. & National Bureau Of Economic Research. (2004) Will Job Testing Harm Minority Workers?. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research. [Pdf] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2005615509/.

MLA citation style:

Autor, David H, David Scarborough, and National Bureau Of Economic Research. Will Job Testing Harm Minority Workers?. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2004. Pdf. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/2005615509/>.