| Abstract: |
This paper studies the role of job search frictions and gender norms in
shaping intrahousehold labor market outcomes in developing countries. We
conduct a field experiment in Delhi, India where we randomly offer access to a
hyper-local digital job search and matching platform either to married couples
only (non-network treatment), or together with the wife's peer network
(network treatment), or not at all. Approximately one year later, we find that
couples in the non-network treatment group exhibit a degree of substitution in
labor supply - wives reduce their intensive margin of work, driven by
withdrawal from casual labor, while husbands increase theirs. In contrast,
husbands in the network treatment group increase their labor supply on both
extensive and intensive margins but with no impact on their wives' labor
supply on either margin. Instead, wives' occupational structure shifts towards
self-employment in the network treatment group. Our findings can be explained
by a simple conceptual framework that incorporates gender-differentiated job
search frictions, conservative social norms against (married) women's market
work and home-production constraints. |