|
on Social Norms and Social Capital |
|
Issue of 2025–03–10
thirteen papers chosen by Fabio Sabatini, Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza” |
| By: | Zovighian, Diane; Cloutier, Mathieu; Bove, Abel Paul Basile |
| Abstract: | What drives citizen’s trust in state institutions There are longstanding debates on the pathways towards institutional trust: is trust driven by citizen’s perceptions of policy outcomes or by their perceptions of the integrity and credibility of policy processes This paper investigates this question using data from a large-scale survey of 5, 916 Moroccans and argues that process matters more than outcomes for trust-building. The paper first shows that Moroccans’ trust in institutions is strongly associated with positive evaluations of policy outcomes—including satisfaction with the delivery of public goods and services and with government’s economic performance. It then provides evidence that institutional trust is even more strongly and robustly associated with the quality of governance processes, and in particular with the perception that institutions function with integrity and make credible commitments. Going beyond policy variables, the paper also provides complementary evidence that institutional trust is contingent on individual-level social capital, including social trust, and socio-demographic factors. The conclusion briefly lays out the policy implications of this research and areas for future investigation. |
| Date: | 2024–05–22 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:10783 |
| By: | Eickmeier, Sandra; Petersen, Luba |
| Abstract: | As central banks, including the European Central Bank (ECB), adopt climaterelated responsibilities, gauging public support becomes essential. Drawing on a June 2023 Bundesbank household survey, we find that 69% of households report increased trust in the ECB due to its climate actions, valuing the institution's broader scope and concern. While 17% and 20% of households express concerns over risks to price stability or independence, 23% believe climate engagement reinforces the ECB's core objectives. An information intervention indicates minimal impact on household inflation expectations, suggesting a disconnect between institutional trust and inflation outlooks. An internal survey reveals that central bankers accurately gauge trust impacts but tend to overestimate effects on inflation expectations. Overall, our findings indicate broad public support for the ECB's climate initiatives. |
| Keywords: | Central bank trust, central bank credibility, inflation expectations, climate change, green policies, survey, central bank communication, uncertainty |
| JEL: | E7 E59 C93 D84 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:bubdps:311842 |
| By: | Coen van de Kraats (Erasmus University Rotterdam and Tinbergen Institute); Titus Galama (University of Southern California, Center for Economic and Social Research and Department of Economics, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Erasmus University Rotterdam and Tinbergen Institute); Maarten Lindeboom (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Centre for Health Economics, Monash University, Tinbergen Institute and IZA); Zichen Deng (School of Economics, University of Amsterdam; FAIR Centre) |
| Abstract: | We provide evidence that the social norm (expectation) that adults work has a substantial detrimental causal effect on the mental well-being of unemployed men in mid-life, as substantial as, e.g., the detriment of being widowed. As their peers in age retire and the social norm weakens, the mental well-being of the unemployed improves. Using data on individuals aged 50+ from 10 European countries, we identify the social norm of work effect using exogenous variation in the earliest eligibility age for old-age public pensions across countries and birth cohorts. |
| Keywords: | mental well-being, social norm of work, retirement institutions |
| JEL: | I10 I31 J60 D63 |
| Date: | 2025–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mhe:chemon:2025-04 |
| By: | Sharmin Sazedj; José Tavares |
| Abstract: | This paper assesses the relevance of professional networks for the gender pay gap amongst top managers. Using data on the universe of firms in Portugal, we show that female top managersearn 25% less than their male counterparts, and that 20% of this gap is due to differences in networks. Using Gelbach’s decomposition, we find that the network effect can be ascribed to firm sorting, i.e. well-connected managers tend to be associated to higher paying firms. By examining the gender composition and the type of connections of top manager networks, we find that same gender connections are important. We conclude that connections between females can play an important role in the existing corporate framework where males areoverrepresented, and thus policies furthering female representation in leadership positions can have positive spillover effects for other women. |
| JEL: | J16 J30 J24 L14 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ptu:wpaper:w202423 |
| By: | Goldstein, Markus P.; Gonzalez Martinez, Paula Lorena; Kilic, Talip; Papineni, Sreelakshmi; Wollburg, Philip Randolph |
| Abstract: | 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. |
| Date: | 2024–02–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:10692 |
| By: | Heath, Rachel; Van Der Weide, Roy |
| Abstract: | Despite evidence that women’s political preferences differ from those of men, women are less likely to participate in political and social discussions on Twitter and other social media. Following recent evidence that in-person social support matters for women’s political participation, women are hypothesized to form similarly supportive communities online. This paper tests this hypothesis using data from Twitter. The collected data comprises 451 hashtags on a broad range of (non-mutually exclusive) topics: social, gender, racial, LGBTQ, religion, youth, education, economic, health, COVID, climate, political, security, entertainment and lifestyle, and the Middle East and Northern Africa. The empirical results indicate that women are more likely to participate when the debate(s) feature female influential voices. This finding supports the potential role of mutual support in bolstering women’s participation in important debates. |
| Date: | 2024–05–14 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:10769 |
| By: | Sefa Awaworyi Churchill (RMIT University); Simon Chang (University of Western Australia); Russell Smyth (Monash University); Trong-Anh Trinh (Monash University) |
| Abstract: | This paper extends prior theory linking present-day sex ratios to present-day propensity for entrepreneurship among men backward in time to explore the long-run gender origins of entrepreneurship. We argue that present-day propensity for entrepreneurship among men will be higher in neighbourhoods which had historically high sex ratios. We propose that high sex ratios generate attitudes and behaviours that imprint into cultural norms about gender roles and that vertical transmission within families create hysteresis in the evolution of these gender norms. To empirically test the theory, we employ the transport of convicts to the British colonies of New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as a natural experiment to examine the long-run effect of gender norms on entrepreneurship in present-day Australia. We use a representative longitudinal dataset for the Australian population that provides information on the neighbourhood in which the participant lives, which we merge with data on the sex ratio in historical counties from the mid-nineteenth century. We find that men who live in neighbourhoods which had high historical sex ratios have a higher propensity for entrepreneurship. We present evidence consistent with the vertical transmission of gender norms within families being the likely mechanism. Arguments for policies to promote female entrepreneurship are typically couched in terms of gender norms representing a barrier to more women starting their own business. We present evidence consistent with gender norms contributing to gender differences in rates of entrepreneurship by being a spur for higher male entrepreneurship rather than a barrier to female entrepreneurship. |
| Keywords: | gender norms, sex ratios, entrepreneurship, Australia |
| JEL: | I31 J21 J22 N37 O10 Z13 Z18 |
| Date: | 2025–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mhe:chemon:2025-06 |
| By: | Alaref, Jumana Jamal Subhi; Patil, Aishwarya Shivaji; Rahman, Tasmia; Munoz Boudet, Ana Maria |
| Abstract: | Whether and the extent to which social norms matter for women’s labor force participation has been shown to vary by context. This paper presents rigorous evidence on how these relationships hold in the case of Nepal, where female labor force participation remains among the lowest in the world. Using a representative survey covering four provinces in Nepal, data were collected from 2, 000 married Nepali women and men on their own beliefs about norms-related behaviors, their expectations of how common it is for others in their social group to engage in those behaviors, and the expected social consequences surrounding those behaviors. Overall, the study finds that personal beliefs and social expectations are generally not very restrictive among respondents, and that there are limited linkages between social norms and women’s work outcomes. However, the study also shows that norms matter for selected subgroups and under certain circumstances that are related to the woman’s role as a mother and in the household as well as to her job characteristics. The findings indicate that relaxing norms in those specific circumstances can help to promote women’s labor force participation in Nepal. |
| Date: | 2024–06–18 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:10810 |
| By: | Simon Clark (School of Economics, University of Edinburgh) |
| Abstract: | I construct a simple matching model that nests transferable utility, nontransferable utility, and imperfectly transferable utility by showing that if the utility possibility frontier of a matched couple satisfies a homogeneity condition it has a CES form, with the elasticity of substitution sigma a measure of the degree of transferability. Taking sigma as exogenous, I analyse how transferability a§ects sorting and payo§s. Treating social norms as a source of imperfect transferability, I examine the effect of norms about gender roles within the household. |
| Keywords: | Matching, marriage market, imperfectly transferable utility, social norms, gender norms |
| JEL: | C7 D1 D9 |
| Date: | 2025–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:edn:esedps:314 |
| By: | Cameron, Lisa; Contreras Suarez, Diana Stella; Setyonaluri, Diahhadi |
| Abstract: | How to influence social norms that drive behavior in relation to women’s participation in employment is not well understood. Providing randomly selected participants with information on the extent of (i) women’s support for women with children working; (ii) husband’s support for sharing day-to-day childcare with wives; and (iii) mothers’ and mother-in-law’s support for working women, increased the probability of choosing an online career mentoring course for women over a shopping voucher of equal value by 25 percent. Information beyond women’s support for working women further increased support for women working for some groups, although not strongly so. |
| Date: | 2024–01–23 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:10681 |
| By: | Ramachandran, Rajesh (Monash University Malaysia); Rustagi, Devesh (University of Warwick); Emilia Soldani, Emilia (OECD) |
| Abstract: | We investigate whether discrimination by teachers explains the large gap in educational outcomes between students from marginalized and non-marginalized groups. Using the context of India, we start with a correspondence study to show that teachers assign 0.29 standard deviations lower grade to an exam of equal quality but with a lower caste surname. We then conduct incentivized surveys, behavioral experiments, and vignettes to highlight some of the invisible elements that are critical to understanding discrimination. We find that teachers hold biased attitudes and beliefs about lower caste individuals, which are associated with poor grading outcomes. We conduct a mechanism intervention based on invoking empathy among teachers to mitigate discrimination. We find that discrimination disappears in the treatment group, and the effect is largest for teachers with higher baseline empathy. These findings are not due to social desirability. Our findings offer a proof-of-concept to understand mental processes that could be instrumental in designing policies to mitigate discrimination. |
| Keywords: | Discrimination ; Correspondence study ; Caste ; Attitudes ; Beliefs ; Empathy ; India JEL Codes: C90 ; I24 ; J15 ; J16 ; Z13 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wrk:warwec:1545 |
| By: | Barnett, Carolyn Louise |
| Abstract: | To what extent do attitudes and perceived norms around household roles hinder the emergence of more gender-equal distributions of labor in Morocco Moroccan women undertake a disproportionate share of unpaid household and care labor and participate in the labor force at low rates. Yet everyday practices are shifting, and normative expectations may be as well. From an online survey of predominantly urban, employed Moroccans, this paper finds that respondents aspire for men to be equal contributors in care tasks. Yet, unpaid labor burdens remain highly unequal, respondents disfavor men taking primary responsibility for cooking or cleaning, and women's share of household labor correlates with perceptions of what men prefer more than with individuals' actual preferences. Results from a conjoint survey experiment measuring preferences around employment and the household division of labor confirm respondents' interest in more egalitarian relations in principle, but also suggest that strong preferences for a male breadwinner family model will continue to drive an unequal distribution of labor at home. |
| Date: | 2024–02–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:10694 |
| By: | Yan, Xiaoqin; Bao, Honglin; Leppard, Tom; Davis, Andrew |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the cultural ties in American sociology defined by the shared usage of cultural symbols across schools. Cultural symbols are operationalized as research focuses from the dissertations of a school’s graduates. We construct a unique pairwise dataset including 6, 441 school pairs across 114 schools, detailing their dyadic relationships (e.g., geographical co-residence) and cultural proximity inferred from dissertations. We build a socio-cultural network where a school sends a tie to another when their proximity is sufficiently high. We design computational linguistic methods to identify gatekeeping symbols co-used by reciprocally connected schools within the same cultural niche. Our findings reveal two major school clusters and their research trajectories, with one representing dominant trends in relatively esoteric areas like sociology of culture, economic life, organizations, and politics and the other a more explicit focus on social problems. We further discern key determinants that shape cultural convergence and distinction, including school prestige, geographical co-residence, and institutional classification. In sum, our study proposes a pipeline for measuring cultural ties across schools and understanding the factors that influence the development of duality between schools and schools of thought. |
| Date: | 2024–02–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:qvyj8_v1 |