Assessing gender discrimination in early-career hiring:an industry-specific experimental study in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan

Abstract

This thesis explores the subject of gender- and family-status-based discrimination in early-career hiring in five industries, including Information Technology, Education, Construction, Finance and Banking, and Accounting, in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Using a correspondence experiment, 510 standardized job applications were sent to 170 employers, all of whom were operating in industries with unique gender compositions. The findings show that no consistent gender discrimination dominates the overall labor market, however, the most significant drawbacks against women can be observed in male-dominated areas where the Information technology and construction can be taken as the most appropriate examples. Family status also conditions hiring results, including married women and married mothers (in that order) are less likely to be called back than their married male counterparts, and married fathers are most likely to be called back. These results present causal evidence of intersectional discrimination of hiring in Kyrgyzstan and prove that combinations of gender, family roles, and industry context together can affect the early-career employment opportunities.