IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0308072.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Effects of gender sensitive language in job listings: A study on real-life user interaction

Author

Listed:
  • Dominik Hetjens
  • Stefan Hartmann

Abstract

The possible impact of gender-sensitive language on readers is among the most controversially debated issues in linguistics and beyond. Previous studies have suggested that there is an effect of gender-sensitive language on mental representations, based on data gathered in laboratory settings with small groups of participants. We add a new perspective by examining correlations of authentic language use with authentic user interaction on a recruitment website. Drawing upon a large dataset provided by the recruitment platform StepStone, we evaluate whether job advertisements using certain kinds of gender-sensitive language in their titles correlate with higher proportions of views by female users. Our results indicate that there are differing effects depending on the type of gender-sensitive language that is used. Overall, the strongest correlation can be found with terms that include the feminine suffix -in.

Suggested Citation

  • Dominik Hetjens & Stefan Hartmann, 2024. "Effects of gender sensitive language in job listings: A study on real-life user interaction," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 19(8), pages 1-18, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0308072
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0308072
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0308072
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0308072&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0308072?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0308072. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.