Social Norms as a Barrier... (2021)

• Norms: "a society's informal rules about appropriate or acceptable behavior."
• Cultural norms constrain choices => gender employment and pay gap
• U-shaped curve?

Social Norms as a Barrier... (2021)

• Cultural norms constrain choices => gender employment and pay gap
• U-shaped curve?

Social Norms as a Barrier... (2021)

• Cultural norms constrain choices => gender employment and pay gap
• Overcoming such norms:
  • Ensuring women's safety at work
  • Generating more coordination with working women
  • More control for women over money
  • Reducing backlash against female earners
  • Balancing work and family

Curse of the Mummy-ji (2020)

• Examines the constraints imposed by social networks on young married women
• "...an average woman interacts with 1.6 individuals in Jaunpur about issues that are important to her (“general peers”) and with 0.7 individuals in Jaunpur about more private matters like reproductive health, fertility, and family planning (“close peers”)."
  • 14% of women are allowed to go alone to health clinic
  • 12% can visit homes of friends or family alone
• Strong role of mother-in-law:
  • A woman who lives with her MIL has 18% fewer close peers
  • And 36% fewer close peers outside the home

Curse of the Mummy-ji (2020)

• Policy interventions should consider going through MIL channel for effective treatment
• A major policy intervention in this channel is family planning

Reshaping Adolescents’ Gender Attitudes

• What if we directly tried to change people's gender attitudes?
• 7th to 10th graders given intervention in classroom to promote gender equality
• Index of gender attitudes (e.g. good to have more women in politics?), education and career aspirations, and self-reported behaviors
  • .18 SDs more progressive in the short run
  • .16 SDs after two years from program completion (5 years from baseline)
• Seems the effect is more pronounced in boys, especially in the long run

Reshaping Adolescents’ Gender Attitudes

• Seems the effect is more pronounced in boys, especially in the long run

Reshaping Adolescents’ Gender Attitudes

• Seems the effect is more pronounced in boys, especially in the long run
• Social desirability bias?

Misperceived Social Norms (2020) 

• Saudi Arabia has extremely low female labor force participation
• Majority of men support WWOH, but vastly under-estimate the support other men give to it
  • Corroborated by a list count method

Misperceived Social Norms (2020) 

• Majority of men support WWOH, but vastly under-estimate the support other men give to it
  • Corroborated by a list count method

Misperceived Social Norms (2020) 

• Majority of men support WWOH, but vastly under-estimate the support other men give to it
  • Corroborated by a list count method
• Randomly correct these beliefs then let them choose to opt in to a (costly) job search app for wives.
  • Driven mostly by those with underestimated beliefs
  • Reflected by real labor force participation decisions

Misperceived Social Norms (2020) 

• Randomly correct these beliefs then let them choose to opt in to a (costly) job search app for wives.
  • Driven mostly by those with underestimated beliefs
  • Reflected by real labor force participation decisions

Misperceived Social Norms (2020) 

Result outside of labor choices

Misperceived Social Norms (2020) 

• Pluralistic ignorance: suggests that misperceived social norms creates an equilibrium in the labor market with too few women workers

Misperceived Social Norms (2020) 

• Some limitations:
  • We don't know if the norms have changed in the long-run or the result of opening the first door (enrolling in the app) created some inertia to allow women to stay in the labor force
  • Social networks of participants => spillover
  • Demand side effects: what if treatment causes me to revise beliefs about what jobs are available to women?