Leonardo Bursztyn, University of Chicago
Leonardo Bursztyn, University of Chicago
Misperceived Social Norms: Female Labor Force Participation in Saudi Arabia
Misperceived Social Norms: Female Labor Force Participation in Saudi Arabia
Bursztyn will provide incentivized evidence (both from an experimental sample in Riyadh
and from a national sample) that the vast majority of married men in Saudi Arabia
privately support female labor force participation (FLFP) outside of home, while they
substantially underestimate the level for support for FLFP by other men - even men
from their same social setting, such as their neighbors. His research then shows that
randomly correcting these beliefs about others increases married men's willingness
to let their wives join the labor force (as measured by their costly signup for a
mobile job-matching application for their wives). This decision maps into real outcomes:
four months after the main intervention, the wives of men in the original sample whose
beliefs about acceptability of FLFP were corrected are more likely to have applied
and interviewed for a job outside of home.
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