Male Social Status and Women's Work
AEA Papers and Proceedings
vol. 108,
May 2018
(pp. 363-67)
Abstract
Female labor force participation varies significantly even among countries with similar levels of economic development. Recent studies have shown that gender norms can help explain these differences in women's work, but the channels through which norms impact women's employment decisions are not well understood. We present novel data on spouses' preferences and perceptions of community attitudes about female labor in rural India and document associations with female work. We find that the perceived social cost of women's work falls on men and that husbands' opposition to female labor is associated with their wives' lower take-up of employment.Citation
Bernhardt, Arielle, Erica Field, Rohini Pande, Natalia Rigol, Simone Schaner, and Charity Troyer-Moore. 2018. "Male Social Status and Women's Work." AEA Papers and Proceedings, 108: 363-67. DOI: 10.1257/pandp.20181086Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- J16 Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
- J22 Time Allocation and Labor Supply
- O15 Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
- O18 Economic Development: Urban, Rural, Regional, and Transportation Analysis; Housing; Infrastructure
- R23 Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics: Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population; Neighborhood Characteristics