Veils of Change [Link to the paper]
Abstract: Collective events that reveal hidden preferences can induce rapid shifts in social norms by altering what people perceive as socially acceptable. In this paper, I study this possibility in the context of Iran’s 2022 `Women, Life, Freedom'' movement which was triggered by the death of a young woman while in the custody of the morality-police for an alleged violation of the hijab-law. Using three complementary datasets: social media posts, geo-referenced protest incidents, and household expenditure surveys, I examine whether exposure to protests reshaped norms and behavior despite the absence of legal reform. The findings are threefold. First, women’s compliance with the mandatory hijab law declines sharply and persistently in the aftermath of the movement, signaling a shift in norms around veiling practices. Second, protest exposure altered intra-household bargaining dynamics, with the allocation of resources shifting away from men and toward women and children. Third, women’s labor-market outcomes show limited adjustments in the short run.
Economic Opportunities and Human Capital Investments: Evidence from Artisanal Gold Mining in Africa, with Akib Khan [MISUM working paper link] [submitted]
Abstract: How does human capital investment respond to local economic opportunities? Income gains can increase the demand for schooling, while new jobs raise the opportunity costs. We investigate this question in the context of rapid growth in artisanal gold mining in sub-Saharan Africa. We compile 45 waves of Demographic and Health Surveys covering 1.2 million individuals from 14 countries in this region. Identification comes from two sources of variation: one in the global gold price and the other in the exposure of households to places that are geologically suitable for artisanal gold mining. We find that a near-tripling of the global gold price, reflecting changes between 2005 and 2010, leads to a decline in school attendance: by 2.6 percentage points for 11--15-year-olds and by 3.3 percentage points for 16--20-year-olds who live near gold-suitable areas. These declines translate into lower completed years of schooling in the long run. We can rule out migration, industrial mining, and conflict as alternative explanations. The results underscore the potential human capital costs of resource-driven economic booms.
Singlehood Stigma, with Yifan Lyu
We document three key patterns in Chinese marriage markets. (i) Across all ages, women are less likely than men to remain single, especially among those with lower education. (ii) Women tend to “marry up” in terms of socioeconomic status, while men more often “marry down”. (iii) The association between age and partner characteristics is asymmetric: as women age, first marriages increasingly involve men of lower socioeconomic status and larger age gaps, whereas men continue to marry younger women, and the marital age gap widens roughly linearly with men’s age. To interpret these facts, we build a tractable equilibrium matching model with age and education heterogeneity, fecundity risk, and within-household bargaining. Individuals face idiosyncratic match values and a declining option value of waiting with age. In equilibrium, a wedge emerges in women’s reservation match quality that grows with female age. Calibrated to the moments above, the model reproduces the observed sorting, age-gap gradient, and the asymmetric marriage penalties by gender, highlighting how the biological clock and social norms jointly shape marital bargaining and the returns to waiting.
Identity and Human Capital Investment: Evidence from the Veiling Ban Removal in Turkey, with Merve Demirel and Akib Khan
Gender Differences in the Job Search Process of Egyptian Students, with Merve Demirel