Rigid norms and roles

Proposed and experimental methods

Methods that are proposed, under trial, approved in some places, or tried and then failed. Each shows a stage label and an evidence rating. A stage label shows how far a method has progressed, not whether it works. The stage labels are explained on the cultural factor page.

• School classes that discuss gender equality (Large trial, B). Over two school years, adolescent girls and boys in Indian schools took part in classroom discussions about gender equality. In a randomized trial, attitudes became more supportive of gender equality by 0.18 standard deviations, which the authors describe as converting 16% of regressive attitudes. The effects lasted two years after the program ended, students reported more gender-equal behavior, and the evidence on two revealed-preference measures was weak (Dhar et al., 2022). It is one trial in one Indian state, and most outcomes are self-reported attitudes.
• Reserved council seats that create female role models (In wide use, B). A 1993 Indian law reserved village council leadership for women in randomly selected villages. Surveys of 8,453 adolescents and their parents in 495 villages found that in villages with a female leader for two election cycles, the gender gap in aspirations closed by 20% among parents and 32% among adolescents, the gender gap in adolescent education was erased, and girls spent less time on household chores (Beaman et al., 2012). The authors found no change in young women's job opportunities and attribute the effect to role models. The quota is national law, but these results come from one state.
• Entertainment education through television drama (Large trial, B). In Brazil, women living in areas reached by Globo, the main producer of soap operas (novelas) that portray small families, had significantly lower fertility, using the staggered timing of Globo's entry into markets as a natural experiment (La Ferrara et al., 2012). In a randomized trial in urban Nigeria, young people who watched the MTV Shuga series were about twice as likely as placebo viewers to be tested for HIV eight months later, and female viewers had fewer sexually transmitted infections (Banerjee et al., 2019a). Male viewers of a storyline on domestic violence were about 21% less likely than controls to justify it (Banerjee et al., 2019b). The Nigeria trial is reported in a working paper and a short conference paper.
• Correcting misperceived gender norms (Early trial, B). In Saudi Arabia, most young married men privately supported women working outside the home but greatly underestimated how many similar men agreed. Correcting this belief made men more willing to help their wives search for jobs, and months later their wives were more likely to apply and interview for jobs outside the home (Bursztyn et al., 2020). A working paper with nationally representative data from 60 countries found such misperceptions of gender norms to be widespread (Bursztyn et al., 2023). Correcting misperceptions of political rivals' views is covered in "Cognitive dissonance and motivated reasoning" in the psychological factors.
• Community dialogue and drama about female genital cutting (Early trial, C). Tostan, a Senegalese nongovernmental organization, runs a community education program ending in public declarations of abandonment. A pre and post comparison-group study in southern Senegal found improved knowledge and attitudes among participants and non-participants in program villages, and a significant fall in reported cutting of daughters aged ten and younger, with no such change in comparison villages (Diop and Askew, 2009). Cutting was self-reported and villages were not randomized. A study in Sudan challenged the idea, central to the public declaration approach, that cutting is a social coordination norm (Efferson et al., 2015). In two randomized experiments in Sudan, entertaining films showing family members openly disagreeing about cutting significantly improved implicit attitudes toward uncut girls, and one film had a relatively lasting effect (Vogt et al., 2016).
• Not shown to help: girls' empowerment clubs to end child marriage (Failed or reversed, B). In a randomized trial in Bangladesh, a girls' empowerment program shifted gender norms toward more progressive views but did not reduce adolescent marriage and increased dowry payments. A small financial incentive to delay marriage made eligible girls 19% less likely to marry underage (Buchmann et al., 2023). The authors conclude that programs that target social norms directly can backfire when early marriage acts as a signal in the marriage market.

Sources cited on this page

1. UNICEF: Is an end to child marriage within reach? (2023) B Moderate: agency estimate
2. Banerjee, A., La Ferrara, E., & Orozco, V. (2019b). Entertainment, education, and attitudes toward domestic violence. AEA Papers and Proceedings, 109, 133-137. link B Moderate
3. Beaman, L., Duflo, E., Pande, R., & Topalova, P. (2012). Female leadership raises aspirations and educational attainment for girls: A policy experiment in India. Science, 335(6068), 582-586. link B Moderate
4. Buchmann, N., Field, E., Glennerster, R., Nazneen, S., & Wang, X. Y. (2023). A signal to end child marriage: Theory and experimental evidence from Bangladesh. American Economic Review, 113(10), 2645-2688. link B Moderate
5. Bursztyn, L., Cappelen, A. W., Tungodden, B., Voena, A., & Yanagizawa-Drott, D. H. (2023). How are gender norms perceived? (NBER Working Paper No. 31049). National Bureau of Economic Research. link B Moderate
6. Bursztyn, L., González, A. L., & Yanagizawa-Drott, D. (2020). Misperceived social norms: Women working outside the home in Saudi Arabia. American Economic Review, 110(10), 2997-3029. link B Moderate
7. Dhar, D., Jain, T., & Jayachandran, S. (2022). Reshaping adolescents' gender attitudes: Evidence from a school-based experiment in India. American Economic Review, 112(3), 899-927. link B Moderate
8. Diop, N. J., & Askew, I. (2009). The effectiveness of a community-based education program on abandoning female genital mutilation/cutting in Senegal. Studies in Family Planning, 40(4), 307-318. link C Limited
9. Efferson, C., Vogt, S., Elhadi, A., Ahmed, H. E. F., & Fehr, E. (2015). Female genital cutting is not a social coordination norm. Science, 349(6255), 1446-1447. link B Moderate
10. La Ferrara, E., Chong, A., & Duryea, S. (2012). Soap operas and fertility: Evidence from Brazil. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 4(4), 1-31. link B Moderate
11. Vogt, S., Mohmmed Zaid, N. A., El Fadil Ahmed, H., Fehr, E., & Efferson, C. (2016). Changing cultural attitudes towards female genital cutting. Nature, 538(7626), 506-509. link B Moderate

Every source for this factor is listed on the cultural factor page.