Orchestrating Impartiality: The Impact of “Blind” Auditions on Female Musicians

Sex-biased hiring has been alleged for many occupations but is extremely difficult to prove. A change in the way symphony orchestras recruit musicians provides an unusual way to test for sex-biased hiring. In blind auditions a screen is used to hide the identity of the player from the committee. The semifinal round, added as the number of applicants grew, may be blind. Finals are rarely blind and almost always involve the attendance and input of the music director. The impact of the screen is positive and large in magnitude, but only when there is no semifinal round. Women are about 5 percentage points more likely to be hired than are men in a completely blind audition, although the effect is not statistically significant. As in research in economics and other fields on double-blind refereeing, the impact of a blind procedure is toward impartiality and the costs to the journal are relatively small.