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Effective and Scalable Programs to Facilitate Labor Market Transitions for Women in Technology

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  • Susan Athey
  • Emil Palikot

Abstract

We evaluate two interventions facilitating technology-sector transitions for women in Poland: Mentoring, focused on expanding professional networks, and Challenges, focused on building credible skill signals. Randomizing oversubscribed admissions, we find both programs substantially increase technology employment at twelve months - by 15 percentage points for Mentoring and 11 p.p. for Challenges. The distinct mechanisms through which the programs operate translate to heterogeneous treatment effects across geography, career stage, and baseline credentials. These differential effects create scope for improved allocation: algorithmic targeting across programs outperforms random assignment by 86% and experts' selection into Mentoring by 11%.

Suggested Citation

  • Susan Athey & Emil Palikot, 2022. "Effective and Scalable Programs to Facilitate Labor Market Transitions for Women in Technology," Papers 2211.09968, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2026.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2211.09968
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    1. Samuel Aryee & Thomas Wyatt & Raymond Stone, 1996. "Early Career Outcomes of Graduate Employees: the Effect of Mentoring and Ingratiation," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(1), pages 95-118, January.
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    8. Lucía Del Carpio & Maria Guadalupe, 2022. "More Women in Tech? Evidence from a Field Experiment Addressing Social Identity," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(5), pages 3196-3218, May.
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    Cited by:

    1. Cordier, J.; & Salvi, I.; & Steinbeck, V.; & Geissler, A.; & Vogel, J.;, 2023. "Is rapid recovery always the best recovery? - Developing a machine learning approach for optimal assignment rules under capacity constraints for knee replacement patients," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 23/08, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    2. Frank Germann & Stephen J. Anderson & Pradeep K. Chintagunta & Naufel Vilcassim, 2024. "Frontiers: Breaking the Glass Ceiling: Empowering Female Entrepreneurs Through Female Mentors," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 43(2), pages 244-253, March.
    3. Athey, Susan & Palikot, Emil, 2024. "The Value of Non-traditional Credentials in the Labor Market," Research Papers 4189, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J44 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Professional Labor Markets and Occupations
    • J62 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Job, Occupational and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion

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