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Orchestrating Impartiality: The Impact of "Blind" Auditions on Female Musicians

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  • Claudia Goldin
  • Cecilia Rouse
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    Abstract

    Discrimination against women has been alleged in hiring practices for many occupations, but it is extremely difficult to demonstrate sex-biased hiring. A change in the way symphony orchestras recruit musicians provides an unusual way to test for sex-biased hiring. To overcome possible biases in hiring, most orchestras revised their audition policies in the 1970s and 1980s. A major change involved the use of blind' auditions with a screen' to conceal the identity of the candidate from the jury. Female musicians in the top five symphony orchestras in the United States were less than 5% of all players in 1970 but are 25% today. We ask whether women were more likely to be advanced and/or hired with the use of blind' auditions. Using data from actual auditions in an individual fixed-effects framework, we find that the screen increases by 50% the probability a woman will be advanced out of certain preliminary rounds. The screen also enhances, by severalfold, the likelihood a female contestant will be the winner in the final round. Using data on orchestra personnel, the switch to blind' auditions can explain between 30% and 55% of the increase in the proportion female among new hires and between 25% and 46% of the increase in the percentage female in the orchestras since 1970.

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    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w5903.pdf
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    Bibliographic Info

    Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 5903.

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    Date of creation: Jan 1997
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    Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:5903

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    1. Holzer, Harry & Neumark, David, 1999. "Are Affirmative Action Hires Less Qualified? Evidence from Employer-Employee Data on New Hires," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 17(3), pages 534-69, July.
    2. Richard B. Freeman, 1983. "Longitudinal Analyses of the Effects of Trade Unions," NBER Working Papers 1207, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. David Neumark & Roy J. Bank & Kyle D. Van Nort, 1995. "Sex Discrimination in Restaurant Hiring: An Audit Study," NBER Working Papers 5024, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Kenney, Genevieve M & Wissoker, Douglas A, 1994. "An Analysis of the Correlates of Discrimination Facing Young Hispanic Job-Seekers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(3), pages 674-83, June.
    5. Paula England, 1982. "The Failure of Human Capital Theory to Explain Occupational Sex Segregation," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 17(3), pages 358-370.
    6. Blank, Rebecca M, 1991. "The Effects of Double-Blind versus Single-Blind Reviewing: Experimental Evidence from The American Economic Review," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(5), pages 1041-67, December.
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    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Google’s promotion policy sucks for women
      by Cathy O'Neil, mathbabe in Mathbabe on 2012-05-18 10:57:34
    2. Women Are Still Discriminated Against in Science
      by Rose Eveleth in Smart News on 2012-09-21 14:06:39
    3. Three Reasons Men Should Read Lean In
      by Nilofer Merchant in HBR Blog Network on 2013-03-11 19:00:36
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    Cited by:
    1. Francine D. Blau & Lawrence M. Kahn, 2000. "Gender Differences in Pay," NBER Working Papers 7732, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Herbert Glejser & Bruno Heyndels, 2001. "Efficiency and Inefficiency in the Ranking in Competitions: the Case of the Queen Elisabeth Music Contest," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer, vol. 25(2), pages 109-129, May.

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