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Blind Recruitment Trial to Boost Gender Equality is Making Things Worse

posted by Fnord666 on Thursday August 10 2017, @09:09PM   Printer-friendly
from the doing-science dept.

janrinok writes:

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

A measure aimed at boosting female employment in the workforce may actually be making it worse, a major study has found.

Leaders of the Australian public service will today be told to "hit pause" on blind recruitment trials, which many believed would increase the number of women in senior positions. Blind recruitment means recruiters cannot tell the gender of candidates because those details are removed from applications. It is seen as an alternative to gender quotas and has also been embraced by Deloitte, Ernst & Young, Victoria Police and Westpac Bank.

In a bid to eliminate sexism, thousands of public servants have been told to pick recruits who have had all mention of their gender and ethnic background stripped from their CVs. The assumption behind the trial is that management will hire more women when they can only consider the professional merits of candidates. Their choices have been monitored by behavioural economists in the Prime Minister's department — colloquially known as "the nudge unit".

Professor Michael Hiscox, a Harvard academic who oversaw the trial, said he was shocked by the results and has urged caution. "We anticipated this would have a positive impact on diversity — making it more likely that female candidates and those from ethnic minorities are selected for the shortlist," he said. "We found the opposite, that de-identifying candidates reduced the likelihood of women being selected for the shortlist."

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  • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @09:21PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @09:21PM (#551878)

    Women should stay at home and have babies. They need to accept that they are slaves to the species. Sorry, but that's the way god (nature) planned it.

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  • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday August 10 2017, @10:16PM (1 child)

    by bob_super (1357) on Thursday August 10 2017, @10:16PM (#551911)

    So, if the ones who get to stay at home and consume are the slaves, how do you call those who have to work all day to provide them with the means to do it?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @10:33PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @10:33PM (#551918)

      You're right! Slaves should be more grateful to their masters!

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 11 2017, @08:25PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 11 2017, @08:25PM (#552559)

    This, but we really don't need more babies, and if they want to do all the work and work with each other I'm fine with escaping wage slavery.