The Influence of Candidate Gender, Incumbent Gender, and Job Position on Hiring Decisions in an Experimental Paradigm

Previous research examining gender biases in a hiring context shows that female candidates tend to be rated more negatively than equally-qualified male candidates. This effect is not consistent across all studies, which causes the role of gender bias in hiring decisions to remain ambiguous. The present study aims to add clarity to that body of research by examining differences in participant ratings of identical male and female job candidates, while manipulating the gender context of the hiring situation using a job incumbent. The study used a 2 X 2 X 2 design (candidate gender, job position, and incumbent gender) with eight groups. Data were collected from 474 participants who were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk. Participants were asked to review the resume of a job candidate applying for either a managerial or non-managerial job position, and then to provide ratings of that candidate’s hirability, starting salary, competence, and conscientiousness. Results of this study suggest that job position could be more influential on evaluations of job candidates than candidate or incumbent gender.