Do Gender-Neutral Job Ads Promote Diversity? Experimental Evidence from Latin America’s Tech Sector

Gendered-grammar languages are spoken by 39% of the global population. We conduct two experiments studying the effects of gender-neutral language in job advertisements and its treatment spillovers. In a Spanish-speaking tech job platform, ads randomly assigned to gender-neutral language attract more female applicants, but only when a small proportion of other ads considered by applicants is treated. In a second experiment, gender-neutral language in ads affects beliefs about job characteristics. Our results suggest that female applicants interpret gender-neutral language as a signal about job amenities and that scalability is limited: if most ads were gender-neutral, the effects would be negligible.