RESEARCH

Abstract: Gender norms are widely recognized as key drivers of persistent gender gaps in the labor market, yet little is known about how these norms evolve or can be influenced. This paper provides new evidence that exposure to university classmates born in more gender-equal environments shapes women’s early-career labor market outcomes. I exploit quasi-random, cross-cohort variation in the geographical origins of peers within Master's programs in Italy, leveraging comprehensive administrative and survey data covering the universe of students. Exposure to female classmates born in provinces with one standard deviation higher female labor force participation significantly increases women’s likelihood of entering full-time jobs and sorting into higher-paying occupations, reducing early-career gender gaps by 21–40%. Using new data I collected on students’ job-search preferences and beliefs, I show that peer effects operate primarily through two channels: reductions in the value women place on hours’ flexibility, and learning about job offer arrival rates. Peer effects are highly asymmetric—concentrated among women from less gender-equal regions—highlighting how exposure can substantially mitigate early-career disadvantages rooted in childhood environments. These findings underscore the potential of education policies that promote geographical diversity to shift gender norms and advance gender equality in the labor market.

Abstract: Low take-up of parental leave by fathers is a key driver of the unequal career costs of parenthood for men and women. Can the design of public policies effectively increase fathers’ participation in parental leave? This paper provides the first causal evidence on how financial incentives shape the intra-household allocation of childcare. We exploit exogenous variation in parental leave benefits induced by a sharp kink in the benefit schedule relative to individual pre-birth net income, combined with novel German administrative data covering millions of households between 2014 and 2018. Using a double Regression Kink Design—an extension of the RKD methodology by Card et al. (2015)—we estimate the behavioral responses of both mothers and fathers to changes in their own and their partner’s replacement rates. We find that a reduction in the mother's benefit leads to a substitution in parental inputs, decreasing her leave duration while increasing the father's take-up, especially along the intensive margin, without altering the total duration of parental leave taken by the household. However, responses are quantitatively modest, reflecting persistent traditional gender roles, and are stronger when fathers face lower opportunity costs and in more egalitarian regions. Our findings highlight how financial incentives interact with cultural and economic constraints to shape household decisions, with implications for the design of family policies aimed at fostering gender equality.

Abstract: This paper shows the existence of gender differences in the impact of unemployment insurance (UI) benefits on unemployment duration. Leveraging a kink in the relationship between previous earnings and UI benefits in the French UI system, we estimate that a 1% increase in the amount of UI benefits leads on average to a 0.9 to 2.0% increase in unemployment duration. However, this average effect masks an important heterogeneity across gender: we find strong positive elasticities for males (1.3 to 2.7), whereas estimated elasticities for females are small (0 to 0.9) and not statistically different from zero. These differences cannot be explained by gender differences in observed characteristics like age, education and experience. Instead, we provide suggestive evidence that they are partly explained by gender differences in job search preferences—particularly with regard to temporal flexibility—that tend to emerge around the time of parenthood.