Citation

Bursztyn L, González AL, Yanagizawa-Drott D. Am. Econ. Rev. 2020; 110(10): 2997-3029.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2020, American Economic Association)

DOI

10.1257/aer.20180975

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

We show that the vast majority of young married men in Saudi Arabia privately support women working outside the home (WWOH) and substantially underestimate support by other similar men. Correcting these beliefs increases men's (costly) willingness to help their wives search for jobs. Months later, wives of men whose beliefs were corrected are more likely to have applied and interviewed for a job outside the home. In a recruitment experiment with a local company, randomly informing women about actual support for WWOH leads them to switch from an at-home temporary enumerator job to a higher-paying, outside-the-home version of the job.

Language: en

Keywords

Belief; Communication; Economic Anthropology; Human Development; Income Distribution; Information and Knowledge; Language; Learning; Migration, Economic Sociology; Non-labor Discrimination, Time Allocation and Labor Supply, Economic Development: Human Resources; Search; Social and Economic Stratification; Unawareness, Economics of Gender