Short answer: no. Nearly every form that asks also lets you decline. 57% of employers in our sample put voluntary self-identification questions on the application form: gender, race or ethnicity, veteran status, disability and sometimes sexual orientation. On 98% of those employers, every question has an explicit "I don't wish to answer" option.
A minority of forms (9% of the employers that ask) mark at least one question as required. Even then, 99% still offer the decline option, so "required" means "pick an answer, and declining is an answer". 93% of the introductions call the questions voluntary.
What these questions are
Self-identification questions ask about characteristics that employers are not allowed to use in hiring decisions: gender, race and ethnicity, protected veteran status and disability. Employers collect the answers separately so they can monitor whether their hiring is fair and report on it. On Greenhouse, which our sample covers, they come in two forms:
- The EEOC block (47% of employers). The long-standing US set: gender, race and ethnicity, and veteran status, with a separate disability question on some forms. The name comes from the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
- The demographic survey (18% of employers). A newer set that adds questions about gender identity, racial and ethnic background, sexual orientation, whether you identify as transgender, and disability. 9% of employers show both.
| Topic | On the form | Required |
|---|---|---|
| Gender | 57% | 5.4% |
| Race / ethnicity | 55% | 4.4% |
| Veteran status | 53% | 3.7% |
| Disability | 20% | 2.3% |
| Sexual orientation | 11% | 0.6% |
| Transgender | 10% | 0.6% |
The "Required" column is the share of all employers that mark that topic's question as required. The highest, gender at 5.4%, is a small fraction of the 57% that ask about it.
Who asks, and where
Location is the biggest factor. 64% of US-based employers include the questions, against 42% of employers elsewhere. The US set is built around rules that apply to US employers, so a form for a job in London or Bangalore is less likely to have it.
| Job family | Employers | Include | Require |
|---|---|---|---|
| Product and program management | 187 | 64% | 10.1% |
| Sales and account management | 350 | 60% | 9.1% |
| Marketing and content | 214 | 59% | 6.1% |
| Operations, finance, HR and legal | 457 | 59% | 6.4% |
| All other roles | 666 | 57% | 4.3% |
| Engineering and data | 667 | 56% | 5.8% |
| Customer success and support | 197 | 54% | 8.0% |
| Design | 156 | 49% | 7.1% |
| Seniority | Employers | Include | Require |
|---|---|---|---|
| Internships | 212 | 51% | 7.0% |
| New grad and entry level | 283 | 56% | 6.7% |
| Mid level or unspecified | 742 | 57% | 5.8% |
| Senior, staff, lead and above | 655 | 60% | 6.6% |
"Require" is the share of all employers whose form marks at least one of these questions as required. The differences by role are modest. The rate runs from 49% to 64% across job families, so the kind of job explains less than you might expect.
What "required" actually means
Across 5,474 forms from 570 employers that include these questions, 620 forms (11%) mark at least one question as required. That sounds like a mandate, but the form's own options tell a different story: 98% of those forms still include an answer such as "I don't wish to answer" or "Decline to self-identify". A required question with a decline option is a question you must respond to, and "decline" is a valid response.
The remaining cases are the exception. If a required question has no decline option, you cannot submit without choosing one of the listed answers. That is the one place the "voluntary" framing is hard to square with the form, and a short message to the recruiter is a reasonable response.
What the forms say about the answers
We searched the introduction text that appears above these questions. The wording is more uniform than most parts of an application:
| The introduction… | Employers |
|---|---|
| calls the questions voluntary | 93% |
| says answers will not affect or be used against you | 91% |
| cites federal contractor or affirmative-action rules | 85% |
The last row explains why the questions are so common among US employers. Companies that hold US federal contracts are expected to invite applicants to self-identify, and the form text says so. The invitation is the requirement. Your answer is optional. We can read what forms promise, not how each employer handles the data afterwards, so the choice about what to share is yours.
Should you answer?
That is a personal decision, and the forms do not penalize either choice. Some points that bear on it:
- The form text says your answers are not used against you. 91% of introductions say so, and the purposes they give are measuring outreach and the fairness of hiring, not evaluating you.
- Declining is supported. The decline option exists on 98% of the employers that ask. Choosing it does not leave a blank field. It records a decision.
- You can answer some and decline others. The questions are independent. Answering a veteran-status question does not oblige you to answer one about orientation.
- Accommodations are a separate request. Answering a disability question is not how you ask for an adjustment to the interview or the job. Some forms have their own field for that, and otherwise you would ask the recruiter directly.
What autofill does with them
Tools that fill applications for you should be careful here, because a wrong guess records protected information about you. ApplyCandid's ATS fill does not guess: on dropdown and radio questions about gender, race and ethnicity, veteran status, disability and sexual orientation it chooses the decline option, and you can change it before you submit. Nothing on a third-party ATS is submitted automatically.
What this does not tell you
We measured the application form, not the whole hiring process. Some employers collect self-identification after you apply, through a separate survey or after an offer, so a form without these questions does not mean the employer never asks. Our sample is Greenhouse forms from mostly US technology employers, and other applicant tracking systems such as Workday and iCIMS may behave differently. This post describes what forms ask. It is not legal advice, and the rules for federal contractors and for employers outside the US are more detailed than a summary can cover.
On 12 October 2026 we downloaded application forms from Greenhouse's public Job Board API for 780 employers, sampling up to 15 open jobs per employer (9,401 forms). Percentages are employer-weighted: each employer counts once, using the mean of its own forms, so a company posting hundreds of roles from one template cannot decide the answer alone. Job family and seniority come from keywords in the job title, and a segment appears only when it covers at least 30 employers. The sample leans toward US technology employers and covers Greenhouse forms only. Method, limitations and downloadable data are in the full study. A form counted as including self-identification questions if its definition contained an EEOC compliance block or a demographic survey. "Required" is the employer's own setting on the question. A question counted as offering a decline option if an answer was flagged as declining or its label matched wording such as "I don't wish to answer", "decline to self-identify" or "prefer not to say". Statements about what the introduction says come from keyword searches of the text shown above the questions ("voluntary", language about answers not affecting or being used against you, and references to federal contractor or affirmative-action rules), so they measure the wording on the form, not employer practice.How we measured this
Frequently asked questions
Are EEO questions on a job application required?
Usually not. 57% of employers include self-identification questions, but only 9% of those mark any question required, and 99% of the forms that do still offer an option such as 'I don't wish to answer'.
Can I decline to answer EEO questions?
Yes. 98% of employers that include the questions offer a decline option on every one, and 93% of the introductions describe the questions as voluntary.
Will declining to answer hurt my chances?
The forms say it should not: 91% of introductions state that answers will not be used against you. We can measure what forms promise, not what individual employers do, so we cannot test the claim.
What is the difference between the EEOC section and the demographic survey?
The EEOC block (47% of employers) is the US standard set of gender, race and ethnicity, and veteran status, with disability on some forms. The demographic survey (18% of employers) adds gender identity, sexual orientation, transgender status and a broader disability question.
Why do US employers ask about veteran status and disability?
The introductions most often cite federal contractor and affirmative-action rules: 85% of them do. Employers with federal contracts are expected to invite applicants to self-identify, but the answer is still voluntary.
Ten questions per form, every form. Answer them once.
ApplyCandid fills the standard fields from your saved profile, declines to guess protected information, and drafts the open-ended answers from your real resume.