Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Female labor force participation (FLFP) has risen in the last decade but remains well below male labor force participation in many parts of the world. Simultaneously, women's education levels have risen. As women attain higher levels of education, an important policy concern in many developing country settings is whether this growing human capital among women is being misallocated in the labor market due to norms about the role of women in society. In this project, I study women’s labor supply and occupational choice in Pakistan. Here, while FLFP has risen, the majority of women in a nationally representative survey report that their families make the decision of whether they work outside the home. Furthermore, cultural norms in this setting prescribe social segregation of men and women. This project explores the impact of gender-related workplace attributes on labor supply decisions of young women and the role of their families in these decisions.

To study this question, I conduct an information experiment on a labor market platform in Lahore, Pakistan. Individual job-seekers are randomly selected to receive information about gender-related workplace attributes at open job postings. The outcome of interest is whether the job-seeker chooses to apply to each position as a function of the gender-related workplace attributes of the positions. The results of this experiment are matched with a vignette experiment conducted at baseline that sheds light on household constraints on women’s labor supply decisions. Finally, measurements of beliefs from baseline and endline are used to analyze the impact of learning about gender-related workplace attributes on occupational choice.

Anecdotally, cultural norms are a barrier to women’s labor supply decisions, particularly in south Asia. This paper seeks to empirically identify these barriers to better inform policy and improve labor markets. Preliminary results from the baseline vignette experiment indicate that respondents and their families require a higher monthly salary to accept a more male-dominated workplace at otherwise identical jobs.