A change in the audition procedures of symphony orchestras—adoption of “blind” auditions with a “screen” to conceal the candidate's identity from the jury—provides a test for sex-biased hiring. Using data from actual auditions, in an individual fixed-effects framework, we find that the screen increases the probability a woman will be advanced and hired. Although some of our estimates have large standard errors and there is one persistent effect in the opposite direction, the weight of the evidence suggests that the blind audition procedure fostered impartiality in hiring and increased the proportion women in symphony orchestras.

Genuine change in the economic and social status of U.S. women did not emanate simply from their increased labor force participation but, rather, from their increase in professions and as “career women. ” Those changes first began in the late 1960s and early 1970s. We examine here one factor of momentous importance in this break with the past. The Economist (December 31, 1999) recently named it the greatest science and technology advance in the twentieth century. It is the oral contraceptive, known worldwide by its moniker “the pill.” In 1960 18.4 percent of professionals were women, as were 4.7 percent of “high powered professionals.”1 But in 1998 36.4 percent of professionals were women and 25.1 percent of the “high powered ” subset were. We explore in this article a series of connections that link the birth control pill to the increase of women in professional occupations. Our evidence for the impact of the pill relies largely on the timing of various changes. Changes in laws giving minors certain adult rights and lowering the age of majority enabled young and unmarried women to obtain the pill. Young women’s control over their fertility directly reduced the costs to them of engaging in long-term career investments. The pill also served to increase the age at first marriage and thus indirectly reduced a potential penalty of