Equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) language in job advertisements (ads) could unintentionally have the reverse effect on attempts to create a more gender-balanced workplace. In fact, actively using EDI language designed to appeal to racial minorities in job ads is not working.
This is according to a study – “Language in job advertisements and the reproduction of labor force gender and racial segregation” by Yang Hu, Nicole Denier, Lei Ding, et al – that appeared in in PNAS Nexus, an official journal of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.
According to the researchers, workforces with a larger share of women tend to include language associated with family-friendly policies and flexible work arrangements in job ads. Such language, they suggested, tends to appeal more to female rather than male applicants, which, in turn, intensifies gender segregation in these workforces.
While workforces with a larger share of racial minority workers tend to include more EDI policy pledges and language signalling workplace EDI culture in job ads, such pledges and language have little impact on workforce racial composition, the researchers said.
The researchers used cutting-edge natural language processing techniques to analyze 28.6 million job ads in the UK in combination with ONS labour force statistics between 2018 and 2023, making it the most comprehensive and up-to-date study of its kind.
“Understanding and tackling persistent labour force gender and racial segregation are crucial to facilitating equality and diversity in the labour market,” said the lead author, Professor Yang.
“Job ads are important because they are the first point of contact between job seekers and employers,” said Denier. “By signalling characteristics expected of an ‘ideal candidate’, job ads ‘gatekeep’ the labour force and configure its composition by shaping both candidates’ tendency to apply for a job and the criteria used for shortlisting and interviewing.”
The study develops a novel inventory of language in job ads, capturing six dimensions of language related to gender and EDI:
- Explicit gender references such as ‘he’, ‘she’, ‘men’ and ‘women’
- Gendered psychological cues such as ‘caring’ and ‘attentive’ vs. ‘authoritative’
- Gendered work roles and skills, such as ‘soft’ and ‘social’ skills vs. roles involving ‘multitasking’ and high ‘pressure’
- Family-friendly policies (e.g. flexible work, work-family balance) vs. family-unfriendly arrangements (e.g. irregular shifts, long hours)
- EDI policy pledges, such as references to the Equality Act and Stonewall
- EDI cultural references, for example, signalling the workplaces as ‘supportive’, ‘accessible’, ‘diverse’ and ‘inclusive’
Using this newly developed inventory, the study characterized and mapped the gender/EDI language used in job ads across occupations and industries to the gender and racial composition of the corresponding workforce in these occupation and industry groups across the labor market.
The study is the first of its kind to disentangle how language in job ads shapes labour force gender/racial composition and how labour force gender/racial composition shapes language in job ads in both directions.
The findings reveal three distinct ways in which the interplay between language in job ads and labour force composition reinforces or disrupts labour force/gender segregation:
- First, language in job ads could reinforce workforce segregation. For example, the study finds that job ads for workforces with a larger share of women tend to include more family-friendly cues and language signalling workplace EDI culture; in turn, such cues and language contribute to increasing the share of women in the workforce.
- Secondly, language in job ads has the potential to disrupt workforce segregation. For instance, the findings show that while job ads for workforces with a larger share of women tend to include more feminine rather than masculine psychological and work role cues, such cues are found to reduce the share of women in the workforce, thus tilting the gender composition of the workforce toward a more masculine direction.
- Finally, language in job ads may have little impact on workforce composition. The study shows that despite the efforts of workforces with a larger share of racial minority workers to include EDI policies and workplace EDI culture in job ads, EDI language does not seem to have any bearing on racial minority representation in the workforce.
These findings demonstrate both the benefits and limitations of intervening in the language used in job ads to help reduce labour force gender/racial segregation.
“They provide insights that are crucial to mitigating the impact of job ads on labour force gender and racial segregation,” said Hu, “but they also show that ‘window-dressing’ EDI language in job ads is not sufficient in actually creating EDI in the labour market, at least when labour force gender and racial composition is concerned.
“Our study calls for a major rethink on how employers frame their job ads and coming up with meaningful ways of communicating and doing EDI to help reduce gender and racial segregation in the labor market.”
Professor Monideepa Tarafdar added: “With the proliferation of large language models, AI-automated text processing tools are increasingly used to help draft and debias job ads. Our research provides a roadmap for building labour market equality into the design of these tools.”
Meanwhile, Professor Karen Hughes added: “Our project, enabled by cross-national funding, also demonstrates the value of collaboration across multiple disciplines to tackle the grand challenges of our time.”
