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Table 1 Prior field experiments on the employability of ex-offenders

From: The employability of ex-offenders: a field experiment in the Swedish labor market

Study, design, country

Crime stimuli

CVs

Jobs

Ratio

Schwartz and Skolnick (1962), correspondence, USA

Assault, unstated punishment

100

100

2.70**

Buikhuisen and Dijksterhuis (1971), correspondence, Netherlands

Theft, drunk driving, revoked driver license

150

150

1.79***

Boshier and Johnson (1974), correspondence, New Zealand

Theft, drunk driving, unstated punishment

122

61

1.22

Pager (2003), audit, USA

Drug felony, 18 months of jail

700

350

2.26***

Pager et al. (2009a), audit, USA

Drug felony, 18 months of jail

340

340

1.80***

Pager et al. (2009b), audit, USA

Drug felony, 18 months of jail

500

250

1.87***

Uggen et al. (2014), audit, USA

Disorderly conduct, no charge or conviction

600

300

1.14

Baert and Verhofstadt (2015), correspondence, Belgium

Juvenile delinquency, 1 year of open detention

972

486

1.29*

Decker et al. (2015), audit, USA

Drug felony, 6 months of jail

266

57

1.77*

Decker et al. (2015), correspondence, USA

Drug felony, 6 months of jail

3108

518

1.16

Agan and Starr (2016, 2017), correspondence, USA

Drug or property felony, unstated punishment

2655

1426

1.60***

  1. Notes: Ratio is calculated by dividing the positive employer response rate for the non-offenders by the positive employer response rate for the ex-offenders. A simple Z test is used to determine statistically significant differences between non-offenders and ex-offenders in positive employer response rates. If the number of CVs is larger than the number of jobs for a study, it indicates that more than one application was sent to each employer. Only male job applicants were used in all prior studies. Studies by Pager and associates, Uggen et al. (2014), Decker et al. (2015), and Agan and Starr (2016, 2017) also included an element of race, which is disregarded here. Only overall differences in the probability of receiving a positive response from employers between comparable ex-offenders and non-offenders are considered here. Agan and Starr (2016) conducted a before-and-after analysis of the “Ban-the-Box” movement (i.e., preventing employers from asking criminal background-related questions) in the USA. Only a subset of their data from the pre-policy period, given in Agan and Starr (2017), is considered here
  2. ***p < 0.01, **p < 0.05, *p < 0.10