Gender Homophily in Job Referrals

Please send an email to Nadine Ketel or Paul Muller if you are interested to participate in this seminar (series).

We explore gender homophily in job referrals using a field study at a leading European business school. In the study, 455 students were asked to refer another student at the school for a real part-time job. We find strong evidence of gender homophily among both male and female students. While the overall gender distribution of students at the school is fairly equal, almost three out of four male students referred a man for the position, and almost three out of four female students referred a woman. We collect detailed data on the students’ friendship networks, and find that about half of the gender homophily in job referrals can be accounted for by the gender composition of networks. Randomizing students across two different job ads, we also show that the gender homophily is robust to the gender stereotypicality of the job.