Gender norms are often emphasized to help explain gender gaps in the labor market. This paper examines global patterns of gender attitudes and norms toward the stereotypical gender roles of the male breadwinner and female caregiver, and broad support for gender equality in opportunities, and studies their relationship with economic behavior. Using data collected via Facebook from 150,000 individuals across 111 countries the paper explores how gender beliefs and norms are related to labor supply, household production, and intrahousehold decision-making power within a country. The paper provides descriptive evidence that the more gender equitable or counter-stereotypical are beliefs and norms, the more likely women are to work, the more time men spend on household chores, and the higher the likelihood of joint decision-making among couples. The findings suggest an underestimation of the support for gender equality globally and the extent of underestimation varies by gender and region. The paper concludes with a discussion of potential entry points for policy to help address gender norms.
| Repository name | URI |
|---|---|
| Reproducible Research Repository (World Bank) | https://reproducibility.worldbank.org |
The code was reproduced on a computer with the following specifications:
– OS: Windows 11 Enterprise
– Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-1145G7 CPU @ 2.60GHz
– Memory available: 15.7 GB
– Software version: Stata version 18
~40 minutes runtime
To run the script, after securing access to the data, new users need to change the directory of the Main do file and run the code.
Some data is restricted and has not been included in the reproducibility package. For more details, please refer to the README file.
| Author | Affiliation | |
|---|---|---|
| Markus Goldstein | World Bank | mgoldstein@worldbank.org |
| Paula Gonzalez | World Bank and The Graduate Institute, Geneva | pgonzalezmartine@worldbank.org |
| Talip Kilic | World Bank | tkilic@worldbank.org |
| Sreelakshmi Papineni | World Bank | spapineni@worldbank.org |
| Philip Wollburg | World Bank | pwollburg@worldbank.org |
We thank Rachael Pierotti, S Anukriti, Ha Nguyen and Lili Mottaghi for their helpful comments and guidance. This paper uses data from the Gender Equality at Home surveys - a collaborative effort between Facebook Data For Good, the World Bank and other development partners. We thank Samhir Vasdev, Safaa Amer, Bronwen Raff and Anna Lerner at Facebook Data For Good. We gratefully acknowledge the financial support from the World Bank Group’s Umbrella Facility for Gender Equality (UFGE) and the Office of the Chief Economist for the Middle East and North Africa (MNACE) under the regional Labor and Gender Research Programs. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent.
2024-03
| Location | Code |
|---|---|
| World | WLD |
The materials in the reproducibility packages are distributed as they were prepared by the staff of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/The World Bank. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this event do not necessarily reflect the views of the World Bank, the Executive Directors of the World Bank, or the governments they represent. The World Bank does not guarantee the accuracy of the materials included in the reproducibility package.
| Name | URI |
|---|---|
| Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
| Name | Affiliation | |
|---|---|---|
| Paula Gonzalez | World Bank | pgonzalezmartine@worldbank.org |
| Reproducibility WBG | World Bank | reproducibility@worldbank.org |
| Name | Abbreviation | Affiliation | Role |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reproducibility WBG | DIME | World Bank - Development Impact Department | Verification and preparation of metadata |
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