Wang Qiqi, Baul Tushi, Chakravarty Sujoy, Rosenblat Tanya
School of Economics, Xi'an University of Finance and Economics, Xi'an, Shaanxi, China.
Instagram, Menlo Park, California, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2025 Jul 31;20(7):e0327299. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0327299. eCollection 2025.
We study how people perceive the self-confidence of individuals from different castes in India. In an experimental Indian labor market where employers and workers belong to different castes, employers evaluate worker resumes to predict the future productivity of workers who perform a real effort task. The baseline group uses resumes that reveal a productivity signal i.e.- performance in a practice task and caste information, while the treatment group receives an additional measure of worker self-confidence. We find that employers in both groups exhibit a discriminatory wage differential against lower caste workers. However, employers in the treatment group weigh lower caste workers' self-confidence more heavily than that of higher caste workers. This differential effect of confidence compensates for the lower evaluation and hence wage given to lower caste workers due to discrimination. From a policy perspective, these findings highlight the importance of non-cognitive skill training, such as training sessions for employment interviews where applicants can signal their self-confidence through interaction with employers.
我们研究了人们如何看待来自印度不同种姓的个人的自信程度。在一个实验性的印度劳动力市场中，雇主和工人属于不同种姓，雇主通过评估工人简历来预测从事实际工作任务的工人的未来生产率。基准组使用的简历会显示生产率信号，即——在一项练习任务中的表现和种姓信息，而实验组会收到关于工人自信程度的额外衡量指标。我们发现，两组雇主都对低种姓工人表现出歧视性的工资差异。然而，实验组的雇主比高种姓工人更看重低种姓工人的自信。这种自信的差异效应弥补了由于歧视而给予低种姓工人的较低评价和工资。从政策角度来看，这些发现凸显了非认知技能培训的重要性，比如针对就业面试的培训课程，在这些课程中，求职者可以通过与雇主的互动来展现自己的自信。
