In Turkey, where female labor force participation is low, Victoria Levin and her team ran a study where they created fake candidates to apply for real jobs using an online job search portal. Over five months, they sent close to 11,000 CVs, with the goal of determining a) if socio-emotional skills, when signaled on CVs, are valuable to employers, and b) whether employers perceive these skills differently when the candidate is a woman rather than a man.

The team was surprised by the results: candidates received positive responses from employers when they signaled these skills only when the job posting specifically called for them, and there was no evidence of discrimination against female candidates in the sectors included in the study. The study is an important step in figuring out the complex relationship between decision making and labor force entry and participation.