Marital status, gender, and sexual orientation: Implications for employment hiring decisions.

Abstract

Marital status and sexual orientation discrimination has been largely underresearched and has not been researched using working professionals, or with the incorporation of sexual orientation, marital status, and gender interactions. Additionally, with the growing acceptance of same-sex relationships, marriages, and partnerships, the interaction of marital status (i.e., applicants with or without a spouse) and sexual orientation bias in the workplace needs to be examined. Our study used an experimental design that manipulated gender, marital status, and sexual orientation in interview simulations and examined participants' (N ϭ 365 working adults) hiring decisions. A significant 3-way interaction was found such that single lesbian women received significantly higher ratings when compared with married lesbian women, and married heterosexual women received significantly higher ratings compared with single heterosexual women. The study revealed that sexual orientation interacted with marital status in women's ratings, but not for men. This research updates current knowledge about discrimination in employment settings and provides updated information on a topic for which the existing research has been largely outdated and underresearched.

Access to the labour market for gays and lesbians: Research review

“…The participants were generally asked to evaluate whether presented résumés match requirements of a given job. Nadler and Kufahl (2014) additionally provided the participants with a video of a fictional job interview. Gorsuch (2014) presented the study as a real job task so the subjects were not aware that they were taking part in an experiment.…”

“…Most male (female)-dominated occupations also involve (and require) employee traits that are stereotypically associated with males (females) (Weichselbaumer, 2004). Stereotyping may play an important role in an interviewer's approach toward a job applicant (Nadler & Kufahl, 2014); for example, by formulation of stereotype-affirming questions and in formation of final judgments that affect hiring decisions. Job applicants who (stereotypically) violate the gender role required for the job may be sorted away.…”

“…The reviewed experimental studies operationalize sexual orientation by manipulating the résumé (or video of a job interview in Nadler & Kufahl, 2014) of the (fictional) job candidates with carefully chosen signals. This is then presented to subjects.…”

Disability and Sexual Orientation Disclosure on Employment Interview Ratings: An Analogue Study

“…Furthermore, there is evidence that there exists an interaction effect between sexual orientation and gender during the hiring process. In an interview simulation study, Nadler and Kufahl (2014) reported that sexual minority men received significantly lower hiring scores than sexual minority women who disclosed their identities during a mock interview. Relatedly, sexual minority men are more likely to be discriminated from jobs that are stereotypically oriented toward heterosexual males (Ahmad et al, 2013;Tilcsik, 2011) Present Study Glover, Corrigan, and Wilkniss (2010) indicated that future studies should continue to investigate the role of intersecting contextual variables on employment hiring bias.…”

Recruitment criteria and attraction strategies for local trained labour in Malaysia’s construction industry

“…Marital status is still inquired about on application form, as well as in job interviews [19,20,21]. It has become a norm for employer to check on applicant's marital status and asking such questions before employment.…”