Orchestrating Impartiality: The Impact of "Blind" Auditions on Female Musicians / Claudia Goldin, Cecilia Rouse.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Goldin, Claudia.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Rouse, Cecilia.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w5903.

NBER working paper series no. w5903

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Other Title:

Orchestrating Impartiality

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 1997.

Summary:

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.

Notes:

Print version record

January 1997.