Age and hiring for high school graduate Hispanics in the United States

Abstract

The intersection of age with ethnicity is understudied, particularly for labor force outcomes. We explore the labor market for Hispanic high school graduates in the United States by age using information from the US Census, American Community Survey, Current Population Survey, and three laboratory experiments with different populations. We find that the differences in outcomes for Hispanic and non-Hispanic high school graduates do not change across the lifecycle. Moving to a laboratory setting, we provided participants with randomized resumes for a clerical position that are, on average, equivalent except for name and age. In all experiments, participants treated applicants with Hispanic and non-Hispanic names the same across the lifecycle. These findings are in stark contrast to the differences and patterns across the lifecycle for corresponding Black workers and job applicants. We argue that these null results may explain the much smaller literature on labor market discrimination against less-educated Hispanic workers.