Original Research
SAGE Open
April-June 2025: 1–13
 The Author(s) 2025
DOI: 10.1177/21582440251335435
journals.sagepub.com/home/sgo
TheWhen and Whereabouts of
Gender Hiring Discrimination
Magnus Bygren1,2 , Anni Erlandsson1,3 , and Michael Ga¨hler1
Abstract
The aim of this article is to explore the circumstances leading employers to discriminate by gender and parenthood, contribut-
ing to the broader aim at increasing our understanding about the mechanisms underlying gender inequality in the labor market.
Previous Swedish (and many international) studies show that employers are about equally likely to hire men and women.
These results tend to refer, however, to data based on aggregates of branches, occupations and sectors. Statistical power is
commonly low when results are broken down by segments. Studies showing no employer discrimination at the aggregate level
may thus hide discrimination in certain segments. There are reasons to expect discrimination by gender and parenthood to
vary depending on context and we explore this by relating variation in employer behavior to variation in demographic (gender)
composition and qualification level in the occupation applied for. In this study, a large-scale experimental correspondence test
design is employed, and non-authentic applications—with gender and parenthood randomly assigned to job applications—are
sent to job openings in the Swedish labor market, including information on a total of 6,755 job applications in 15 occupations.
The results show no indication of discrimination based on gender or parenthood in this early step of the recruitment process,
and this is regardless of whether the occupation is dominated by either gender or is gender balanced.
Keywords
discrimination, field experiment, gender, labor market, parenthood
Introduction
In general, men outperform women, and fathers outper-
form mothers in the labor market (for a review, see
Ponthieux & Meurs, 2015). Research is not clear about
the role that employer discrimination of women and
mothers may play for differences in labor market out-
comes. While qualitative studies propose that gender-
related discriminatory attitudes and behaviors are domi-
nant among some employers (see Hobson et al., 2011),
systematic studies of discrimination are still too few to
draw conclusions with certainty.
Discriminatory behavior by employers is often claimed
to be a possible mechanism behind these gender (by par-
enthood) gaps (e.g., Bygren & Ga¨hler, 2012; Blau &
Kahn, 2017), and perhaps more so in Sweden and the
other Nordic countries than in other societies. Sweden is
well-known for its generous family policy model. Near
full pay parental leave periods are extensive, and subsi-
dized, high-quality, public childcare is easily accessible for
parents of small children. These policies, paired with indi-
vidual taxation, have facilitated parental employment and
created strong economic incentives for families to have
dual earners. As a result, the female and maternal
employment rates are higher in the Nordic countries than
in most other OECD countries (OECD, 2017). Nordic,
including Swedish, family policies are generally regarded
as institutions increasing gender equality in the labor mar-
ket. A number of scholars have however raised concerns
about this conclusion (e.g., Bergmann, 2008; Mandel &
Semyonov, 2006), as generous family policies—in practice
mostly used by women—inadvertently may obstruct
1Stockholm University, Sweden
2Institute for Futures Studies, Stockholm, Sweden
3University of Turku, Finland
Corresponding Author:
Anni Erlandsson, Swedish Institute for Social Research, Stockholm
University, Universitetsva¨gen 10F, Stockholm, SE-10691, Sweden;
Department of Sociology, Stockholm University, Sweden; INVEST Research
Flagship Centre, University of Turku, Finland.
Email: anni.erlandsson@sofi.su.se
Data Availability Statement included at the end of the article
Creative Commons CC BY: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of
the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages
(https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
women’s (i.e., mothers’) opportunities for successful
careers.
The aim of this article is to investigate the contingen-
cies of employer discrimination by gender and parent-
hood, if and how it varies across segments in the labor
market, and to explore some of the potential mechan-
isms behind any such variation. In recruitment decisions,
employers seem to generally discriminate against some
categories of applicants. Experimental studies uniformly
indicate that employers are reluctant to hire employees
with ‘‘foreign’’ or ‘‘minority’’ names (for a review, see
Baert, 2018; Lippens et al., 2023).
While the authors, in a previous study, show no evi-
dence of gender discrimination in the Swedish labor mar-
ket (Bygren & Ga¨hler, 2021), in this study the authors
will explore specifically the interaction of gender and
parenthood with the aim to shed light on some of the
potential discriminatory mechanisms. That is, whether
mothers—or fathers or parents in general—are discrimi-
nated in different segments, and in specific occupations,
of the labor market. In addition, here we theorize about
demand side conditions affecting the employers’ propen-
sity to discriminate, and use a stringent empirical method
to test hypotheses on such demand side effects.
It is not easy for researchers to empirically explore
discrimination and unravel its consequences in the actual
labor market, in particular because discrimination can
be subtle, appearing more or less subconsciously
(Cunningham et al., 2004; Petersen, 2006). The data used
here emanate from correspondence testing, which repre-
sents a type of field experiment design that has evolved
in response to this challenge. It uses inauthentic written
applications to apply for jobs in the labor market. The
approach has been successfully applied in a large number
of studies, primarily to detect ethnic discrimination but
also discrimination based on, for instance, race, gender,
sexual orientation, age, social class, personality, and
attractiveness (see Baert, 2018). Previous studies, in
Sweden and internationally, generally show no or weak
signs of gender discrimination (e.g., Ahmed et al., 2021;
Albert et al., 2011; Baert et al., 2016; Birkelund et al.,
2022; Bursell, 2014; Bygren et al., 2017; Cape´au et al.,
2012; Carlsson, 2011; Kline et al., 2022; Zhou et al.,
2013). These results often refer, however, either to single
occupations or aggregates of more occupations. Thus,
discrimination in certain segments of the labor market
may be hidden. To be able to identify the potential when
and whereabouts of employer discriminatory behaviors
appears as an important and natural next step for this
research field. It would nuance the question about the
role of discrimination, away from the simple yes/no
dichotomy to an investigation of the conditions leading
to more, less, or no gender by parenthood discrimination
in the labor market. Our approach therefore aligns with
a research agenda focusing on the structural—rather
than individual—conditions conducive of discrimination.
The results that will emanate from this paper speak to
several fields of research. This study fills a void in the
knowledge about labor market segment differences in
discrimination, for gender by parenthood. Due to small
sample sizes, previous research has not been able to fully
evaluate established hypotheses concerning such differ-
ences. For instance, Bygren et al., 2017 found large dif-
ferences in gender by parenthood discrimination rates
between the 16 occupations included in their study, but
because of the low-n problem they were unable to disen-
tangle whether these differences were just an effect of
random variation or caused by occupational differences,
such as varying demand for labor (i.e., queuing effects),
skill levels, demographic composition, sector, or some-
thing else. The combined data sets of this paper put us in
a much better position to evaluate possible patterns of
segment differences in employer discrimination.
A better understanding of these differences is impor-
tant in order to advance theory development concerning
the mechanisms behind discrimination. In order to fully
understand how discrimination based on gender and par-
enthood works, the theoretical understanding of this pro-
cess needs to be developed in dialog with high quality
empirical evidence about under what circumstances this
type of unfair treatment occurs, and under what circum-
stances it does not.
Theory and Previous Research
In a globalized world, while gender equality has increased
in many countries, gender segregation in the labor market
and a gender divide in unpaid (care) work remain (see
Ullah et al., 2023). Mothers, or potential mothers-to-be,
may spend long periods away from work, or work reduced
hours. Swedish (Nordic) employers are therefore expected
to practice statistical discrimination against women, and
mothers, in hiring as they (on average) can be seen as less
productive employees, and thereby more costly to the
employer, in comparison to men, and fathers. Highly edu-
cated women may be particularly likely to suffer because
employers find it riskier to hire or train women for jobs
where they are hard to replace (Mandel & Semyonov,
2006). That is, employers will negatively discriminate
high-educated and high-skilled women and mothers, and
more so the more family policies give parents (read: moth-
ers) incentives to spend time away from full-time work.
While statistical discrimination is based on differences
in the average productivity of groups (Arrow, 1973;
Phelps, 1972), for example, men and women or mothers
and fathers, discrimination may also stem from a
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cognitive bias that functions beyond the actual produc-
tivity of groups (cf., S. J. Correll & Benard, 2006). Status
characteristics related to gender and parenthood may
play a role in this context. In fact, a branch in sociological
theory argues for the role of status characteristics, for
instance regarding gender and parenthood, in the labor
market (cf., C. L. Ridgeway & Correll, 2004). Predominant
cultural status rankings concerning individuals of certain
groups are frequently applied in the evaluation of perfor-
mance and characteristics, and status-related beliefs of this
type tend to propose men as superior to women in many
spheres of social life (C. Ridgeway, 2011; C. L. Ridgeway
& Smith-Lovin, 1999). A status characteristic operates, or
is activated, when it distinguishes between individuals or
appears relevant in a certain context. The status character-
istic is then adopted by individuals to make predictions,
about behavior, competence, commitment, among others,
that are in line with their beliefs regarding a certain status.
For instance, it is likely that the gender discriminatory
practices that manifest themselves in the context of
employer callbacks following job applications, are activated
only for women and men with children, because parent-
hood may be the characteristic that an employer believes to
be linked to possible differences in skills between women
and men. Status characteristics seem to be applied quite
stridently when evaluating the parenting skills and job-
related competence of mothers and fathers.
US-based laboratory experiments have found parent-
hood to be connected to rather strict job-related stan-
dards for women, but relatively soft standards for men,
implying a status-based discrimination mechanism to
operate to disbenefit mothers and to benefit fathers.
Fuegen et al. (2004) reported raters to be less favorable
toward hiring and promoting a mother than a childless
woman (with identical formal qualifications) and that
parental status did not matter as regards the hiring and
promotion of men. Heilman and Okimoto (2008) showed
that female applicants with children were rated lower on
job commitment and competence, and that they conse-
quently were less likely to be recommended for a vacant
position. S. Correll et al. (2007) reported childless women
to be rated higher than mothers for an executive posi-
tion; despite of their qualifications being the same on all
dimensions, mothers were penalized on a number of
measures, such as perceived competence.
As noted, there are strong reasons to expect employers
to discriminate by gender and parenthood in the hiring
stage, but conclusive evidence of this is lacking, and
direct investigations of whether employers discriminate
on these dimensions are remarkably few. Many field
studies have found no evidence of employer hiring dis-
crimination by gender (Albert et al., 2011 [Spain]; Baert,
2015 [Belgium]; Baert et al., 2016 [Belgium]; Birkelund
et al., 2022 [when looking at the pooled data across six
countries, but, in a few countries, discrimination against
men is reported when the countries are analyzed sepa-
rately]; Cape´au et al., 2012 [Belgium]; Zhou et al., 2013
[China]; Kline et al., 2022 [the U.S.). There are excep-
tions to this, as men have been found to be discriminated
against in some studies (Berson, 2012 [France]; Booth &
Leigh, 2010 [Australia]; Di Stasio & Larsen, 2020 [five
European countries]; Jackson, 2009 [the UK]; Lippens
et al., 2023 [a meta-study comprising many countries]),
and other studies have found discrimination against
women (Gonza´lez et al., 2019 [Spain]; Petit, 2007
[France]; Riach & Rich, 2006 [the U.K.]). Also, Swedish
studies including data on gender tend not to suggest that
employers in general discriminate against women at the
hiring stage (Ahmed et al., 2021; Bursell, 2014; Bygren et
al., 2017; Carlsson, 2011). These results, however, tend
to refer to averages across very different types of employ-
ers and labor market conditions, and gender discrimina-
tion may still be practiced in certain situations (see
Brande´n et al., 2018).
Rather few studies have used correspondence testing
to evaluate whether employers discriminate based on
parenthood in interaction with gender. Most commonly,
European field experiments have not shown evidence of
a motherhood penalty in general (Bygren et al., 2017;
Gonza´lez et al., 2019; Hipp, 2020; Petit, 2007). Yet, a
few field experiments report a motherhood penalty when
exploring the order in which the (fictious) candidates
receive responses in Spain (Gonza´lez et al., 2019) and
when investigating explicit interview invitations (instead
of all callbacks) for an event manager position in
Germany (Hipp, 2020). In a French study, Petit (2007)
found callback rates to be consistently higher among
non-parents, regardless of gender. In a Belgian study,
Baert et al. (2018) found the callback rate of mothers
and non-mothers to be on par; instead, fathers were
penalized compared to non-fathers. In a Swedish study,
Bygren et al. (2017) found callbacks not to differ signifi-
cantly depending on the gender and parenthood status
of applicants. In contrast to these European studies, in
an American study, S. Correll et al. (2007) found the
callback rate for mothers to be half the rate of that for
equally qualified non-mothers, indicating employer dis-
crimination against mothers; for men, parenthood did
not matter for callbacks (but it was generally lower than
for women). A limitation associated with the American
and French study is that they focused only on very lim-
ited segments of the labor market, that is, marketing and
business jobs and the financial sector respectively. The
Belgian and Swedish studies, in contrast, covered a
broader range of occupations. In the Swedish study,
some interesting between-occupation patterns emerged,
Bygren et al. 3
but the low-n problem precluded conclusions on occupa-
tional heterogeneity.
Why would we expect heterogeneity across employers
and labor market conditions in employer discrimination
by gender and parenthood? Based on theory and the
scholarly literature, we will investigate two dimensions as
potential modifiers of discrimination: (1) Demographic
composition. The gender composition of segments of the
labor market might be reproduced through gender bias
in their supply of labor (Bygren & Kumlin, 2005), but
also be reinforced by cultural perceptions of gender
(combined with parenthood) differences in job compe-
tence, and these may, consciously or subconsciously,
affect employer priors on how men and women will per-
form as employees (cf., Pager & Shepherd, 2008). Some
jobs require workers to embody the brand they represent
in speech and appearance. For workers with direct cus-
tomer contacts, ‘‘looking right and sounding right’’ may
be crucial for customer satisfaction, driving employers to
hire based on easily observed characteristics (cf.,
Williams & Connell, 2010). Accordingly, one would
expect employers to hire in accordance with the current
gender composition. However, employers might also
want to counterbalance a skewed gender composition in
their workplaces by favoring minority applicants. A few
studies conducted in Sweden suggest employers to have a
(weak) preference for hiring job applicants belonging to
the underrepresented sex (Bursell, 2014; Carlsson, 2011),
but there are exceptions to these (Ahmed et al., 2021).
We have previously shown (Bygren & Ga¨hler, 2021)
women to be slightly favored over male job applicants in
both male-dominated occupations and female-dominated
occupations in Sweden, but these gender differences in
callbacks are not statistically significant. Also, interna-
tional studies have sometimes found discrimination
against men in female-dominated occupations whereas
discrimination against women have been found in male-
dominated occupations (cf., Adamovic & Leibbrandt,
2023; Riach & Rich, 2006). We therefore have partially
conflicting empirical expectations with regard to this
dimension, and we now want to explore specifically the
gender by parenthood interaction. (2) Qualification level.
The qualification level of the job might mediate the effect
of any potential discrimination in several ways. Mothers
may suffer from higher statistical discrimination in more
qualified jobs, where workers are more difficult to
replace and where absence is extra costly for employers.
This may particularly be the case in societies, such as the
Swedish, that have generous parental-leave programs
(see above). Parental leave mandates impose potentially
significant nonwage costs to employers, disadvantaging
in particular highly skilled working women because
employers have strong incentives to pass on the ones
more likely to use these mandates (cf., Mandel &
Semyonov, 2006). On the other hand, there is also a ten-
dency that employers of high-skilled (high-earning)
workers want their jobs to be portrayed as family-
friendly by offering work-schedule flexibility (Budig &
Hodges, 2010). Organizations hiring highly educated per-
sonnel may be more likely to apply equal treatment poli-
cies and formalized recruitment processes, suggesting
that discrimination should be less pronounced for these
positions. We thus have conflicting hypotheses also for
this dimension.
These dimensions vary across industries, occupations
and sectors. We also aim at theorizing and exploring
potential complex patterns between demographic com-
position and qualification level. For example, in high-
skilled male-dominated segments (e.g., finance), men
might be less willing to let employees belonging to the
minority sex enter into their ranks compared to employ-
ers in high-skilled gender-balanced or female-dominated
segments. Moreover, occupations tend to vary in terms
of labor demand, and this may impact the level of dis-
crimination. Deriving from rationales on economics of
discrimination (Becker, 1971), with a greater level of
demand for workers—when vacancies are more difficult
to fill—employers are less likely, and less able, to discri-
minate. Thus, it will also be explored whether a higher
level of demand for employees in the occupation is
related to decreased discrimination based on gender and
parenthood.
Study Design, Methods and Data
Because of generalizability issues related to the results
from laboratory experiments, and the weaknesses of the
observation methods, it has become common to conduct
field experiments to study labor market discrimination.
Correspondence audits represent the main type of field
experiment used to study discrimination in the hiring
process, and inauthentic job applications are used to
apply for jobs in the labor market. Thus, correspondence
testing is based on written applications, and the job
applicants exist only on paper. An advantage of the
method is its high external validity. Real employers make
real decisions based on ‘‘real’’ job applications that were
manipulated in such a way that factors other than, in
this case, gender and parenthood are held constant, or
controlled for, thereby effectively minimizing the risk
that a discriminatory effect is spurious. The extent of dis-
crimination, that is, the differential treatment of appli-
cant categories in focus, is measured directly based on
employers’ responses, callbacks, to the applications.
What makes this method superior to other techniques is
its real-world context that generates more direct—less
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biased—evidence of the extent of discrimination while a
great deal of control is still possessed by the researcher.
Some limitations of the approach should be kept in
mind. The main drawback is that it is difficult to genu-
inely understand employer choices using field experi-
ments. Such questions require the use of more intense
methods involving closer observation, interviews, and
perhaps tailored tests (e.g., Implicit Association Tests,
vignette survey experiments). Moreover, while correspon-
dence testing observes employer discrimination in the
early stage of the recruitment process, discrimination can
also take place at later stages, and within an organization
or a workplace. Workers may, for instance, be displaced
or assigned different work tasks because of their gender
or parenthood status, or suffer in other processes that are
not observed in correspondence testing, such as wage-set-
ting, promotions, internal training opportunities and lay-
offs. Moreover, our findings are restricted to publicly
advertised positions that approve written job applica-
tions. Yet, in the Swedish context, this should be less of a
problem as written job applications are practically the
standard. Nevertheless, entry into employment through
other routes, such as social networks and walk-ins, are
neglected here. Nevertheless, discriminatory mechanisms
that operate in organizational processes, or as a conse-
quence of homophily in social networks, may also be
influential when employers choose which of the otherwise
unknown job applicants to contact.
A limitation of the study design—corresponding test-
ing—is its lack of informed consent from the partici-
pants. Yet, the lack of informed consent is inherent in
the study design. If employers knew about the study and
its purpose, the employer behavior regarding discrimina-
tion that the researcher aims to observe would not be
informative. Thus, in order to observe discrimination
patterns, one cannot inform the employers about them
being observed, as this could lead to them changing their
behavior.
This type of research involves a cost for the employ-
ers, in terms of time and resources, for handling a ficti-
tious job application that they believe to be authentic.
Yet, the employers and their representatives most likely
do not experience any physical or mental harm or suffer
any pain, discomfort or invasion of privacy due to the
research. For an individual employer, the loss of time
and resources can be argued to be very minor in absolute
terms, and, especially, in relation to the societal and sci-
entific benefit generated by the research as regards
increased knowledge about potential discrimination
based on for example, gender and parenthood, in the
labor market.
Multiple measures were taken to limit the risk of harm
to the employers, and to minimize potential employer
costs. First, only one fictitious application was submitted
in response to each job advertisement. While this design,
in comparison to sending two (or more) applications to
each employer, involves not only (at least) one applica-
tion less for the employer to administer, it also means
that the employers do not need to compare and decide
between two (or more) fictitious applications with equal
merits, thereby clearly saving time. Second, the employ-
ers who respond to the fictitious applicants will shortly
receive a notice about the applicant no longer being inter-
ested in the advertised vacancy. Third, employers remain
anonymous, and only aggregated results are published.
This means that individual employers cannot be identi-
fied in the reporting of results. Fourth, as only one appli-
cation is sent to each job opening, and the researchers
have no information about other applicants, there is no
way of identifying potential discrimination among indi-
vidual employers. The aim of the study is to detect gen-
eral discrimination patterns, not to point out individual
employers, and the collected data can only be used to
observe discrimination patterns in the Swedish labor
market, and in given occupations or occupational cate-
gories, in general.
Although this study leads to no direct benefits for the
involved employers, companies and organizations, there
is an indirect benefit of this type of research. In case dis-
crimination based on, for example, applicant gender and/
or parental status, occurs in the Swedish labor market,
the labor market appears not to function effectively in
terms that the right worker may not end up in the right
place and the most qualified candidate may not be cho-
sen for a vacancy, which in turn entails costs for employ-
ees as well as employers. Therefore, it may be considered
to be in the interest of all employers to observe (poten-
tial) hiring discrimination Further, this type of research
can result in increasing employer awareness of their own
behavior, and unintentional discrimination, which could
generate improved recruitment decisions in the future.
Prior to conducting the data collection, and later to
pool data with a previous data collection, ethical applica-
tions were submitted to The Regional Ethics Review
Board in Stockholm and the Swedish Ethical Review
Authority respectively which decided not to review the
applications. The board stated, in both cases, that the
research project did not include the kind of processing of
personal data that according to the Ethical Review Act
is sensitive to the research persons, and that the research
is therefore not covered by the Ethical Review Act.
According to the accompanying statement of opinion,
the committee viewed that there were no obstacles to car-
rying out the research.
The data comprise 6,755 job applications submitted
to advertised vacancies between October 2013 and April
2019 using an unpaired design, that is, one application
was sent in response to each advertisement. Some of the
Bygren et al. 5
benefits of the unpaired procedure—besides minimizing
employer costs time and effort wise—are enabling the
use of identical applications, instead of using applica-
tions with equivalent merits, and decreasing the risk of
detection by the employers (see Vuolo et al., 2018). Also,
the procedure of using only one application avoids the
risk of spillover effects (see Phillips, 2019).
Applicant gender was randomly assigned to the appli-
cations, and foreign-sounding names were assigned to a
portion of the applications. While the Swedish-sounding
names were common for persons born during the same
decade as the fictive applicants, the foreign-sounding
names were typical Yugoslavian and Middle Eastern
names that are common in Sweden. To indicate parent-
hood (and civil) status, half of the applications contained
information that the applicant lives with his/her two chil-
dren, and the other half, contained no information about
children. All applicants were aged 31 years, which lies
close to the median age of becoming a mother in Sweden.
While job applicant gender and a signal of parenthood
status were randomized to each application, the data can
be considered as an experiment in which employers are
the subjects and applicant gender—signaled by a gender-
specific first name—and parenthood status are the treat-
ments. Occupations that differ in terms of gender and
immigrant composition, educational level and sector (see
Bursell, 2014) were chosen. Also, occupations that
could—and that appeared reasonable to—be applied for
with relatively simple applications were chosen. Thus,
applications were submitted in the following 15 occupa-
tions: accountant/auditor, assistant nurse, carpenter,
chef, cleaner, computer specialist, driver, engineer (in
machine technology, industrial economics, or electro-
nics), financial assistant, teacher (elementary or high
school), nurse, preschool teacher, receptionist, salesper-
son, and store personnel/cashier. By comprising seven of
the 10 largest occupations in the Swedish labor market,
these represent relatively common occupations in the
Swedish labor market.
Vacancies were searched for on one of the largest
websites for job advertisements in Sweden, that is, the
Swedish Public Employment Service’s website, focusing
mainly on vacancies in, or nearby, the three largest cit-
ies in the country, Stockholm, Gothenburg, and
Malmo¨.
The job applications included a CV and a cover letter.
The CV contained contact information (name, telephone
number, e-mail address, and postal address), date of
birth, work experience and educational background.
Each applicant had a relevant occupation-specific educa-
tion and work experience, and the cover letter contained
additional information about these as well as the appli-
cant’s background (e.g., parenthood status). Each
(fictious) applicant was linked to a given phone number
with a voice mail and a name-specific e-mail address.
A callback was defined as a reply—by e-mail or
telephone—from the employer indicating interest in the
applicant., commonly an invitation to a job interview, a
direct job offer or a request for more information. Thus,
any explicitly negative callbacks, automatic replies, and
nonresponses were not considered as callbacks.
Descriptive statistics are shown in Table 1. As a check,
job applicant gender was regressed on the variables in
Table 1 (except the indicators of occupational gender
composition as these are determined by occupation); these
variables should not predict treatment status as long as
the randomization was successful. None of the variables
appeared significantly associated with treatment status,
and the p-value for the F-test of joint significance (.928)
indicated a successful randomization (not shown here;
results are available from the authors upon request).
To test hypotheses on segment heterogeneity in gen-
der (by parenthood) discrimination, two occupation-level
dimensions were related to discrimination here.
Table 1. Descriptive Statistics, Percentages.
Variable All
Female
name
Male
name
Non-negative callback 30.7 31.8 29.7
2013 4.5 4.7 4.3
2014 20.0 20.5 19.6
2015 7.2 6.8 7.6
2017 14.2 14.4 14.0
2018 43.7 43.3 44.2
2019 10.3 10.3 10.4
Foreign name 41.9 41.8 41.9
Female-dominated occupation
Store personnel 7.4 7.1 7.7
Financial assistant 6.7 6.4 6.9
Preschool teacher 7.4 7.4 7.5
School teacher 5.1 4.9 5.2
Cleaner 6.5 6.3 6.6
Receptionist 3.3 3.5 3.2
Nurse 4.8 4.8 4.8
Assistant nurse 5.5 5.7 5.3
Gender-balanced occupation
Chef 11.8 12.4 11.3
Accountant/Auditor 7.2 7.1 7.4
Salesperson 12.1 11.8 12.3
Male-dominated occupation
Engineer 3.5 3.7 3.3
Computer specialist 7.2 6.9 7.4
Driver 8.7 9.0 8.5
Carpenter 2.9 3.1 2.6
Female-dominated occupation 46.6 46.1 47.2
Gender-balanced occupation 31.1 31.2 31.0
Male-dominated occupation 22.3 22.7 21.9
Number of observations 6755 3375 3380
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Regarding demographic composition, Statistics Sweden’s
yearly population register data covering the entire
Swedish labor market was used to construct detailed
measures of gender composition in various segments of
the labor market. For the purpose of this paper, the
share of female employees in each occupation was used
as an independent variable. Thus, the occupations were
categorized based on the share of female employees, rely-
ing on Statistics Sweden’s occupational register for 2016
into three types: female dominated (more than sixty per-
cent females), gender balanced (between 40%and 60%
females), and male dominated (below 40% females).
Store personnel, financial assistant, preschool teacher,
school teacher, cleaner, receptionist, nurse and assis-
tant nurse were categorized as female dominated. Chef,
accountant/auditor and salesperson were categorized
as gender balanced; whereas engineer, computer spe-
cialist, driver and carpenter were categorized as male
dominated. Qualification level was directly measured as
the jobs we apply for are well-defined on the types of
formal merits required in them. The following occupa-
tions were classified as highly qualified because as a
rule they require tertiary education: accountant/audi-
tor, computer specialist/engineer in computer science,
engineer (in machine technology/industrial economics),
nurse, preschool teacher, and school teacher. In addi-
tion, information about the labor demand in the occu-
pation was used to assess the probability of a callback
based on the level of labor demand by gender and par-
enthood. Relying on the Swedish Employment
Agency’s vacancy and unemployment statistics, labor
demand was measured based on the ratio of advertised
positions to unemployed in the occupation in the year
the job application was sent.
Results
Do Swedish employers discriminate on the grounds of
gender and parenthood? In accordance with the authors’
previous analyses (Bygren et al., 2017) of employer call-
backs, based on a smaller part of the data used for this
analysis, no indication of such discrimination is found. As
the authors have shown previously (Bygren & Ga¨hler,
2021), when data are aggregated, that is, when all occupa-
tions are pooled, women receive employer callbacks to a
similar extent as men do (if anything, the female callback
rate is slightly higher: 31.8% vs. 29.7%). Figure 1 shows
that parents receive employer callbacks to similar extent
as non-parents (or parents-to-be) do (30.3% vs. 31.1%).
In addition, Figure 1 illustrates that parenthood does not
affect male and female job applicants’ chance of receiving
an employer callback in any substantially different way.
Figures 2 to 7 present percentage point differences in
employer callbacks (the significance tests mentioned here
refer to two-sample tests of difference in proportions).
When the results are broken down by occupation
(Figure 2), some gender variation in callback rates is
found. In two cases, assistant nurse and cleaner, differ-
ences are around 10percentage points, to the advantage
of female applicants, and statistically significant on the
5% level. Both occupations are female dominated. Thus,
it seems that employers of these professions act to conso-
lidate existing gender segregation. On the other hand,
however, results also indicate that male applicants are
preferred as nurses, suggesting that employers of other
professions strive to correct for existing gender bias.
Coefficients for most occupations, however, hover
around 0 and, thus, indicate no or just a few percentage
points difference in employer callbacks between male
and female job applicants.
Figure 1. Employer callback rates by applicant gender and
parenthood signal.
Nurse
Chef
School teacher
Store personnel
Receptionist
Salesperson
Financial assistant
Driver
Carpenter
Engineer
Computer specialist
Accountant/Auditor
Preschool teacher
Assistant Nurse
Cleaner
-.2 -.1 0 .1 .2
Men preferred Women preferred
Figure 2. Effect size of applicant gender on probability of callback
by occupation with 95% confidence intervals (ref: male name).
Bygren et al. 7
The small, or non-existing, effect of signaled parent-
hood is confirmed when the data are broken down by
occupation. For no occupation does the difference in
callback rate between parents and non-parents reach sta-
tistical significance, neither for female nor for male appli-
cants (Figure 3). Again, differences are not only non-
significant, but also, in general, rather small.
So far, our results confirm what has been found in
most previous studies, only with larger and, thus, more
reliable data: there seems to be no overall employer dis-
crimination by the combination of gender and parent-
hood when it comes to hiring, or at least in the early step
of the hiring process. Our aim here, however, is to study
whether this general pattern hides discrimination by cer-
tain structural conditions, that is, occupational gender
composition and/or occupational qualification level.
Results presented in Figure 4 show that employers,
regardless of current gender composition in occupation,
seem to be rather indifferent to female and male job
applicants’ parenthood status. Differences between sig-
naled parenthood status among men and women respec-
tively for all measures of gender composition, male
dominated, gender balanced, and female dominated, are
close to 0 and in no case reach statistical significance.
Turning to qualification level of occupation, two con-
flicting hypotheses were formulated. First, that employ-
ers are reluctant to hire mothers for highly qualified jobs
because absence is costly and workers are difficult to
replace in these positions. Second, that employers are
less likely to discriminate applicants for these positions
because they are eager to hire the most productive
employee and are also more likely to apply equal treat-
ment policies and formalized recruitment processes.
Again, indifference among Swedish employers is found.
Males and females are equally likely to receive a callback
on their job application regardless of whether the job
Women
Men
Preschool teacher
School teacher
Driver
Computer specialist
Salesperson
Nurse
Assistant Nurse
Store personnel
Financial assistant
Chef
Accountant/Auditor
Cleaner
Receptionist
Carpenter
Engineer
-.2 -.1 0 .1 .2 .3
Effect of parenthood signal for wom across occ
Receptionist
Store personnel
Engineer
Preschool teacher
Carpenter
Financial assistant
Assistant Nurse
Driver
Accountant/Auditor
School teacher
Salesperson
Chef
Computer specialist
Cleaner
Nurse
-.2 -.1 0 .1 .2
Effect of parenthood signal for men across occ
Figure 3. Effect size of parenthood signal and applicant gender
by occupation with 95% confidence intervals (ref: no parenthood
signal).
Women
Men
Male dominated occupation
Gender balanced occupation
Female dominated occupation
-.1 -.05 0 .05 .1
Effect of parenthood signal, women
Male dominated occupation
Gender balanced occupation
Female dominated occupation
-.05 0 .05 .1
Effect of parenthood signal, men
Figure 4. Effect size of parenthood signal and gender composition
of occupation by applicant gender with 95% confidence intervals
(ref: no parenthood signal).
8 SAGE Open
requires a tertiary education or not (Figure 5) and,
again, signals of parenthood have very little impact
(basically none) for both genders (Figure 6).
In a final analysis, gender composition is interacted
with qualification level of occupation. At this stage, we
only have a crude hypothesis claiming that men in highly
qualified, male-dominated occupations are keen to
exclude women from these positions. Once again, these
expectations are not confirmed. If anything, females
applying for jobs in male-dominated, highly qualified
occupations, have a slightly higher chance of receiving an
employer callback but the difference is not statistically
significant (Figure 7). In none of the cases, regardless of
occupation gender composition or qualification level
female applicants are found to be negatively discrimi-
nated against by employers. In one case, however, the
Tertiary education not required
Tertiary education required
0 .02 .04 .06 .08
Effect of female name
Figure 5. Effect size of applicant gender by qualification level of
occupation with 95% confidence intervals (ref: male name).
Tertiary education not required
Tertiary education required
-.08 -.06 -.04 -.02 0 .02
Effect of parenthood signal for women
Tertiary education not required
Tertiary education required
-.05 0 .05
Effect of parenthood signal for men
Women
Men
Figure 6. Effect size of parenthood signal and qualification level
of occupation by applicant gender with 95% confidence intervals
(ref: no parenthood signal).
Highly qualiied jobs
Less qualiied jobs
Male dominated occupation
Gender balanced occupation
Female dominated occupation
-.05 0 .05 .1 .15
Effect of female name, qual. jobs
Male dominated occupation
Gender balanced occupation
Female dominated occupation
-.1 -.05 0 .05 .1
Effect of female name, unqual. jobs
Figure 7. Effect size of applicant gender and gender composition
of occupation by qualification level of occupation with
95% confidence intervals (ref: male name). Highly qualified jobs.
Less qualified jobs.
Bygren et al. 9
opposite is found. Females are more likely than their
male peers to receive a callback from employers when
they apply for a female-dominated, low qualified job.
This could be sensed already by studying Figure 2, where
female applicants were preferred for jobs as assistant
nurse and cleaner. It should be noted, however, that
although this gender difference is statistically significant
(the confidence interval does not cross the zero line), it is
not very substantial, only around three percentage points.
Finally, regression analyses show that the (logged) ratio
of labor demand in the occupation does not appear to
matter notably for the callback probability by gender or
parenthood (see figures in Online Appendix). Although
the figures illustrate somewhat different patterns by the
interaction of gender and parenthood based on labor
demand, these differences are not very substantial.
Concluding Discussion
Sweden ranks high on the United Nations Gender
Development Index and Gender Equality Index respec-
tively. Gender differences in, for example, life expec-
tancy, education, standard of living, reproductive health,
and empowerment, are smaller here than in most other
societies (United Nations Development Programme,
2016, tables 4 and 5). Labor market outcomes differ rela-
tively little between men and women, female labor force
participation is high in Sweden (United Nations
Development Programme, 2016, table 5), the gender
employment rate gap is small, also for mothers to young
children (OECD, 2017, figures 1.6 and 1.7), and so is the
gender difference in unpaid working time (OECD, 2012,
figure 17.1). Still, the Swedish labor market is strongly
gender segregated, in fact, as segregated as labor markets
in societies ranking lower on gender equality overall
(Nermo, 2000). Thus, women and men work in different
occupations, branches and sectors. Could this be referred
to employer discrimination by gender, that is, that
employers prefer employees of a certain gender for a cer-
tain occupation? Our results here, and previously
(Bygren & Ga¨hler, 2021), show no indication of this, at
least in the early stage of the recruitment process.
Employers are as likely to respond positively to job
applications regardless of whether the applicant is male
or female—or a mother or a father—and regardless of
whether the occupation is dominated by either gender or
is gender balanced. Thus, the reason for gender segrega-
tion on the Swedish labor market must be sought else-
where. One possibility is, of course, that employees are
less likely to remain in occupations dominated by the
opposite gender, based on, for example, social exclusion
or hampered career opportunities. An obvious reason
behind the segregation, however, is the fact that the pool
of potential employees is highly gender segregated
(Bygren & Kumlin, 2005). In other words, women and
men are educated and trained, and apply, for different
occupations, which limits employers’ possibility to
remove gender segregation, even if they prefer to do so.
Is there such a preference? For some occupations, this
indeed seems to be the case. Nurse is a female-dominated
occupation and computer specialist and engineer are
male-dominated occupations. For these occupations,
there is a tendency that employers prefer job applicants
of the non-typical gender. For other occupations, how-
ever, such as assistant nurse, cleaner, and preschool
teacher, all female dominated, there is a tendency that
employers prefer job applicants of the typical gender,
thus maintaining existing gender segregation. The reason
why employers behave differently in different occupa-
tions, although these occupations share characteristics
such as, for example, gender composition, is an issue that
deserves further study.
A common argument is that employers are reluctant
to hire mothers and women in fertile ages for highly
qualified positions, the argument being that it is difficult
and costly to replace them when they are on parental
leave, work part-time, or stay home with sick children.
This argument does not receive support in our data.
Female job applicants are just as likely (or even more) as
male job applicants to receive employer callbacks when
they apply for jobs that require tertiary education, and
signaling parenthood status does not seem to matter.
There appears to be basically no gender difference in
callbacks even when applying for highly qualified jobs in
male-dominated occupations. In other words, based on
employer callbacks, there is no indication of employers
trying to reserve certain high-status occupations for male
applicants or prevent female applicants to enter these
segments of the labor market. It should be noted, how-
ever, that some of the ultimate elite positions on the
labor market are not included in the data here and, thus,
there is no way of knowing whether hiring patterns differ
there. The opposite argument, that employers for highly
qualified positions behave less discriminating than other
employers, because they belong to organizations that
apply equal treatment policies where recruitment pro-
cesses are formalized, also receives no support in our
data. Employers of less qualified jobs are just as likely to
disregard applicant’s gender and parental status as
employers of qualified jobs are.
Previous research shows that gender differences on
the labor market emerge or increase in connection with
parenthood. For example, Bygren & Ga¨hler (2012) show
that men’s chances of receiving a managerial position
increase when they become fathers, whereas women’s
chances are unaffected when they become mothers.
Moreover, men receive a larger wage premium when
they become parents than women do (Bygren et al.,
10 SAGE Open
2021). Does this mean that employers prefer fathers over
mothers overall? No sign of this is found here. When
responding to job applications, employers appear to make
no difference between parents and non-parents in general
and, moreover, women are not affected in any other way
by parenthood than men are. This finding may come as a
surprise, given the fact that Swedish men often increase
their working time following parenthood whereas women
decrease theirs (Kennerberg, 2007), and mothers still use
the large majority of parental leave days (Swedish Social
Insurance Agency, 2017). Employers, of course, know
this. Thus, rather than asking whether employers discrimi-
nate against mothers, one may instead ask why they do
not. A recent Danish study may shed some light on this
issue. Brenøe et al. (2020) find that small firm ‘‘output,
profitability or survival’’ (p. 1) are unaffected by mothers’
parental leave and decreased working hours. The firms
find ways to handle this by, for example, replacing these
women with temporary manpower. Thus, when employers
hire, applicant credentials and merits may overrule any
potential influence of signals of parenthood.
In fact, this may be the general conclusion from our
analyses: Regardless of occupational qualification level
or gender composition, Swedish employers seem to disre-
gard irrelevant characteristics such as applicants’ gender
and parental status when responding to job applications
and, instead, focus on characteristics that contribute to
their organization’s prosperity and survival, such as the
applicant’s competence and expected productivity. One
may even be so bold as to claim that Swedish employers
in this way seem to behave in a rational manner.
ORCID iDs
Magnus Bygren https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4398-5033
Anni Erlandsson https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9104-5049
Michael Ga¨hler https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4746-9194
Ethical Considerations
Ethical applications were submitted to The Regional Ethics
Review Board in Stockholm (dnr. 2013/1237-31/5) and the
Swedish Ethical Review Authority (dnr: 2019-01220) which
decided not to review the applications. The board stated, in
both cases, that the research project does not include the kind
of processing of personal data that according to the Ethical
Review Act is sensitive to the research persons, and that the
research is therefore not covered by the Ethical Review Act.
According to the accompanying statement of opinion, the com-
mittee viewed that there were no obstacles to carrying out the
research. Due to the research method (corresponding testing),
the study lacks informed consent from the participants.
Author Contributions
The authors have contributed equally to this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial sup-
port for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article: This research was supported by the Swedish Research
Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare (Forte grant
2012-0587; Forte grant 2018-00594), and by the Academy of
Finland Flagship Programme (decision number 320162).
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with
respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.
Data Availability Statement
The data that support the findings of this study are not publicly
available, and restrictions apply to the availability of these data.
Aggregated data are however available from the authors upon
reasonable request.
Supplemental Material
Supplemental material for this article is available online.
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