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Research Master Pre-Defense

Who Represents You? Expected Discrimination in Job Applications through Intersectional Identities

  • Date and time

    July 08, 2025
    11:00 - 12:00

Minority employee representation in workplaces can positively influence the labour supply of individuals with marginalised identities, and has encouraged policies such as affirmative action. Most existing research and policy efforts have, however, focused on single-dimensional identities—for example, increasing the representation of women—while overlooking more complex, intersecting dimensions. With multiple identities, it is not clear which of their own identities individuals will focus on when applying for a job. We aim to study this by focusing on how representation informs applicants’ beliefs on their chances of being accepted to a job and their subsequent labour supply when they have multiple identities. Specifically, we hope to understand 1) whether individuals focus on intersectional or single-dimensional identities when forming expectations, and 2) if it is the latter, how they choose which identity to focus on. This is motivated by a two-step heuristic theory with motivated reasoning. We test this using an experiment representing the job application process with multiple identities and expected discrimination.