مهارت های ریاضی و نتایج بازار کار: شواهدی از یک پژوهش میدانی مبتنی بر رزومه

We examine the link between math skills and labor-market outcomes using a resume-based field experiment. Specifically, we send fictitious resumes in response to online job postings, randomly assigning some resumes to indicate stronger math skills, and measure employer responses. The resumes that are randomly assigned to indicate stronger math skills receive more interest from employers than the comparison resumes. Our findings add to the body of evidence showing that stronger math skills positively affect labor-market outcomes.

We evaluate the effects of math skills on labor-market outcomes using a field experiment. Our methodology is similar to the one used by Bertrand and Mullainathan (2004) in their work on employer discrimination: we send fictitious resumes in response to online job postings, randomly assigning some resumes to indicate stronger math skills, and measure responses from employers. We send resumes to job postings in three occupational categories: clerical/administrative, customer service (including cashiering), and sales. These occupational categories include some of the largest occupations in the United States.1 Our study adds to a large literature in economics relating math skills to labor-market outcomes, and offers two unique contributions. First, by virtue of the occupational categories that we focus on in our experiment, we isolate the effects of stronger math skills for moderately skilled workers. Moderately skilled workers make up a substantial fraction of the workforce but have received little direct attention in prior work.2 Second, we randomly assign math skills to resumes. This allows us to avoid the serious econometric challenges related to the endogenous formation of math skills in real data. It is also of interest that we performed our experiment during a period of high unemployment in the United States (the spring and summer of 2010). For individuals seeking sales positions, we find that stronger math skills positively affect employer interest. We also find some evidence of a positive math-skill effect for prospective clerical workers, but we do not find any evidence that stronger math skills are important for individuals seeking employment in customer-service positions. Stronger math skills do not decrease employer interest in any of the occupational categories that we examine.

Our study adds to the literature relating math skills to labor-market outcomes, and makes two contributions. First, we evaluate the effects of stronger math skills for moderately skilled workers, who make up a large fraction of the labor force but have received little direct attention in prior work. Second, our field-experiment design offers a unique approach to evaluating the effects of stronger math skills on labor-market outcomes. The key benefit is that we can randomly assign math skills to resumes, obviating concerns that they are endogenously determined. In summary, we show that employers looking to fill sales positions are more likely to respond (with clear interest) to a resume that indicates stronger math skills, and the effect is large. This result is specific to high-education resumes. We also find some evidence that math skills positively affect employer interest in clerical resumes, but this finding is not consistent enough throughout our analysis to make strong inference. Math skills do not decrease employer interest in any of the occupational categories that we consider.