Open AccessBetween College and That First Job: Designing and Evaluating Policies for Hiring Diversity
Author(s) -
Soumitra Shukla
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
finance and economics discussion series
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2767-3898
pISSN - 1936-2854
DOI - 10.17016/ifdp.2021.1331
Subject(s) - caste , diversity (politics) , subsidy , elite , parallels , affirmative action , government (linguistics) , private sector , aptitude , demographic economics , labour economics , political science , public relations , psychology , economics , economic growth , law , operations management , linguistics , philosophy , politics , developmental psychology
Despite widespread caste disparities, compensatory hiring policies remain absent from the Indian private sector. This paper employs novel administrative data on the job search from an elite college and evaluates policies to promote hiring diversity. Application reading, written aptitude tests, large group debates, and job choices do not explain caste disparities. Disparities arise primarily between the final round, comprising non-technical personal interviews, and job offers; the emergence closely parallels caste revelation. For promoting diversity, hiring subsidies — similar in spirit to the government-proposed Diversity Index — are twice as cost-effective as improving pre-college achievement. Conversely, quotas mirror a hiring tax and reduce university recruitment by 7%.