Cultural and Human Capital Signals in Hiring-A Factorial Survey Experiment Across Contexts.

Autor/inn/en	Burchartz, Luisa; De Keere, Kobe; Geven, Sara
Titel	Cultural and Human Capital Signals in Hiring-A Factorial Survey Experiment Across Contexts. Gefälligkeitsübersetzung: Kulturelle und humankapitalbezogene Signale bei der Personalauswahl - Ein faktorielles Umfrageexperiment in verschiedenen Kontexten.
Quelle	In: The British journal of sociology, 77 (2026) 4, S. 786-801 PDF als Volltext kostenfreie Datei Link als defekt meldenVerfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	online; gedruckt; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0007-1315; 1468-4446
DOI	10.1111/1468-4446.70125
Schlagwörter	Kompetenz; Fremdeinschätzung; Soziale Herkunft; Bildungsabschluss; Personalauswahl; Personalmanagement; Berufserfahrung; Einstellung (Arbeitsrecht); Personalsachbearbeiter; Programmierer; Freizeitgestaltung; Internationaler Vergleich; Mittleres Lebensalter; Auswirkung; Bewertung; Kulturelles Kapital; Berufsanfänger; Deutschland; England; Großbritannien
Abstract	"When evaluating candidates, hiring agents may draw on signals of human as well as cultural capital. While these processes have been considered separately, an open question is how the two types of signals interact. As signals of social class, cultural capital signals relate to human capital as they evoke stereotypes about competence, polish, and discipline, and can indicate different patterns of social mobility in combination with human capital signals. These interdependencies may be important in employee gatekeeping, and therefore in the reproduction of labour market inequalities. In this paper, we address the question of how hiring agents evaluate cultural capital signals in light of different human capital signals. We draw on a factorial survey experiment to analyse hiring agents' evaluations of different cultural capital signals (combining signals of class backgrounds and class practices) in relation to human capital indicators (the level and specificity of education, training participation, and work experience) across contexts. These contexts include two countries, Germany and England, two sectors, Software Development and Human Resource Management, and two career stages, the early and late career. The results show that the value of highbrow cultural capital signals depends on the context, as well as on human capital signals. In Software Development and HRM as the professional fields that we studied, hiring agents often did not give value to cultural capital signals. This was especially the case in England. In Germany, positive evaluations of cultural capital signals mostly followed a multiplication effect: such signals were only valued when higher human capital signals were also indicated. We found this pattern most clearly in Germany, particularly for late-career candidates. This multiplication effect underlines the importance of looking at combinations of cultural and human capital signals for understanding how inequalities are generated in gatekeeping processes." The study refers to the period 2024-2024 (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku).
Erfasst von	Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung, Nürnberg
Update	2026/4