The Impact of Marital Status on Job Finding: A Field Experiment in the Chinese Labor Market

Abstract

Abstract This paper studies the impact of marital status on job finding in China using the correspondence methodology. Fictitious CVs are sent to job advertisements through an online job board website, focusing on financial and accounting jobs, and the callback rate is measured. We vary the gender and marital status on otherwise identical CVs. The previous literature suggests that being married has a negative impact on the labor market outcomes of females, but a positive impact for males. In contrast, for the Chinese labor market, we do not find a significant effect of marital status on job finding for either gender.