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on Gender |
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Issue of 2026–07–20
three papers chosen by Jan Sauermann, Institutet för Arbetsmarknads- och Utbildningspolitisk Utvärdering |
| By: | Rigissa Megalokonomou; Juliana Silva-Goncalves; Roel van Veldhuizen |
| Abstract: | We study the role of self-promotion and career advice in sustaining gender differences in labor market outcomes. We conduct a pre-registered experiment in which “advisers” advise “workers” to attempt either a more or a less ambitious task. We find that women promote themselves less than men and, as a result, are 12 percentage points less likely to be advised to choose the more ambitious task. This gender gap in advice persists across both quantitative and qualitative self-assessments and is robust to variation in advisers’ information sets—including when advisers observe workers’ actual performance—but is eliminated and even reversed when advisers are informed of the gender gap in self-promotion. |
| Keywords: | advice, gender, self-promotion, randomized experiment |
| JEL: | C91 D91 J16 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12809 |
| By: | Robert Gonzalez; Seunghun Chung; Ahmad Shah Mobariz |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the impact of mobile phone expansion on gender norms in Afghanistan. We combine cell tower data from the country’s largest operator with nationally representative survey data on attitudes toward women’s education, employment, and leadership. Using lightning strike intensity as an instrument for network expansion, we find that greater mobile access lead to more progressive views toward women’s education and employment, particularly among men. Women’s support for female leadership also increased while men’s stated views did not change. We explore information and labor supply channels as potential mechanisms driving these effects. We find little evidence for a labor market participation channel, suggesting that information access—both direct and via networks—is more likely to explain the observed attitudinal changes. While we find no downstream effects on women’s schooling or employment participation, mobile expansion increased votes for female candidates, the number of women running, and the share elected to office. These results suggest that expanding access to mobile technology can weaken restrictive gender norms even in settings with strong cultural constraints. |
| Keywords: | culture, gender norms, phone access |
| JEL: | H0 O3 Z13 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hic:wpaper:457 |
| By: | Hira Kaleem (Lahore School of Economics); Anri Sakakibara (Technical University of Munich (TUM)); Waqar Wadho (Lahore School of Economics); Abu Siddique (Royal Holloway & IFS) |
| Abstract: | Female labor force participation in LMICs remains persistently low, despite improvements in women’s education, fertility, and income that would normally predict higher participation. We argue that this pattern can reflect a coordination failure sustained by miscalibrated second-order beliefs about community approval of women working outside the home. In many households, a woman’s employment is determined by more than one decision-maker, and each may care about the perceived approval of both men and women in the community. Therefore, the binding misperception can lie in any of four belief cells: men’s beliefs about men, men’s beliefs about women, women’s beliefs about men, or women’s beliefs about women. We study these possibilities using novel primary survey data from more than 4, 000 low-income Pakistani households. Within households, we elicit each respondent’s own support for women’s work, second-order beliefs about community support, and the target woman’s labor-market behavior, comparing households within the same census block. We find that support for women’s work is widely underestimated, especially support among women, so communities are substantially more accepting than their members believe. The belief most strongly associated with a woman’s search and work history is her own perception of other women’s approval. Male household members’ beliefs matter mainly for women’s current employment status, consistent with their role in granting permission. The belief that appears most important is also correlated across generations along gender lines: mothers’ beliefs about women predict daughters’ beliefs about women. Evidence on mechanisms points most strongly to social learning about respectability rather than the anticipation of social sanctions from other women. |
| Keywords: | women working outside the home, social norms, misperceptions, second-order beliefs, pluralistic ignorance, peer effects, Pakistan |
| JEL: | J16 J22 D13 D83 O12 Z13 |
| Date: | 2026–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aiw:wpaper:50 |