Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/232724 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 13972
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
In labor markets where disadvantaged students are discriminated against, meritbased college scholarships targeting these students could convey two opposing signals to employers. There is a positive signal reflecting the candidate's cognitive ability (talented in high-school and able to maintain a high GPA in college) as well as her soft skills (overcoming poverty). There is also a possible negative signal as the targeting of the scholarship indicates that the beneficiary comes from a disadvantaged household. We conduct a correspondence study to analyze the labor market impact of an inclusive education program. Beca 18 provides merit-based scholarships to talented poor students admitted to 3-year and 5-year colleges in Peru. We find that the positive signal dominates. Including information of being a scholarship recipient increases the likelihood of getting a callback for a job interview by 20%. However, the effect is much smaller in jobs and careers where the poor are under-represented, suggesting that the negative signal of the scholarship is not zero.
Subjects: 
employment
inclusive education
correspondence study
discrimination
JEL: 
C93
I23
J7
J15
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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