Please use this form to submit your study for inclusion into our database. It will be checked by a member of the Innovation Growth Lab team, who may be in contact to ask for more information. Your email address * Your name * Title * The name of the study Short summary This paper investigates whether social identity considerations and norms may be driving occupational choices by women. A brief description of the project's goals and its current state Abstract <p>This paper investigates whether social identity considerations and norms may be driving occupational choices by women. We implement a randomized field experiment to analyze how the self-selection of women into the technology sector changes when we randomly vary the recruitment message to potential applicants to a 5-month software coding program offered only to low income women in Peru and Mexico. In addition to a control message with generic information, in a treatment message we correct misperceptions about expected returns for women and their ability to pursue a career in technology. This de-biasing message doubles the probability of applying (from 7% to 15%). We then analyze the stark differential self-selection patterns for the treatment and the control groups to infer the potential barriers that may explain occupational segregation. We find evidence that both expectations about monetary returns in the sector and a perceived “identity” cost (as reflected by an IAT test and survey measures) of a career in technology operate as barriers. We interpret our results in the light of a Roy model where women are endowed with returns to skill in the technology and services sector, and bear an identity cost of working in technology (à la Akerlof Kranton, 2000). Through a follow up experiment in Mexico DF we are able to rule out alternative explanations for our results and point to what dimensions of the initial treatment matter most. Our results suggest social identity can explain persistent occupational segregation in this setting and point towards policy interventions that may alleviate it.</p> The full abstract of the study, if available Links https://faculty.insead.edu/maria-guadalupe/documents/paper%20More%20Women%20in%20Tech%20.pdf Links to any published papers and related discussions Authors * Affiliations Academic and other institutes that the authors of the study are members of Delivery partner Organisations involved in delivering the trial, if appropriate Year Year Year199419951996199719981999200020012002200320042005200620072008200920102011201220132014201520162017201820192020202120222023202420252026 Month MonthJanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec Day Day12345678910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031 Journal Journal publishing the study, if available Publication stage * Working Paper Published Ongoing Research Forthcoming Discussion Paper Research theme * Entrepreneurship Innovation Business Growth Country Country or countries where this study took place. Topics What sort of topics does the study cover? Sample attributes Hypotheses / research question Sample Trial population and sample selection Number of treatment groups Size of treatment groups Size of control group Unit of analysis Clustered? Yes No Cluster details Trial attributes Treatment description Rounds of data collection Baseline data collection and method Data collection method and data collected Evaluation Outcome variables Results Intervention costs Cost benefit ratio Reference Citation for use in academic references
