• "Gender Education Gaps and Household Labor Supply: Causal Evidence from Turkey", with Luca Paolo Merlino. Submitted 

This paper examines how narrowing intra-household education gaps through increased women's education affects household labor supply, leveraging a compulsory schooling reform in Turkey. Using a regression discontinuity design, we show that women affected by the reform are more likely to be employed, especially as wage earners, and become more financially independent. While household labor income increases, their husbands work less. These effects are more pronounced for households living in regions with more conservative gender norms. These findings suggest that traditional gender norms constrain the welfare gains women derive from narrowing gender education gaps within households.

• "To Veil or Not to Veil? Assessing the Removal of Headscarf Ban in a Muslim Country", with Wenqi Lu. Submitted 

This paper examines how removing identity-based institutional restrictions affects women’s economic participation by exploiting the 2013 repeal of a longstanding headscarf ban in Turkey. We combine two nationally representative surveys and use statistical matching and machine-learning models to predict women’s veiling status, to identify treatment effects by comparing veiled and non-veiled women’s labor market outcomes in a difference-in-differences framework. The repeal led to a significant rise in public sector employment among veiled women, driven by both higher employment rates and shifts away from self-employment and unpaid family work. In contrast, non-veiled women experienced a decline in public sector jobs, suggesting a substitution effect, with no evidence of reduced efficiency in the public sector after the repeal. Consistent with this pattern, effects are concentrated among more educated veiled women, the group most likely to qualify for public positions. We find no differential effects across regions with high and low veiling prevalence or ruling-party vote shares, suggesting that institutional access, rather than local acceptance or political favoritism, drives the response.

• "Improving Preschool Quality for Disadvantaged Children", with Thomas van Huizen. A new draft will be available soon

High-quality early childhood education strongly predicts early learning and development, with potentially long-lasting effects into adulthood. A major policy challenge is therefore how to ensure equal access to high-quality early childhood education. This paper examines how complementing preschool staff with pedagogical leaders (coaches) affects the quality of teacher-child interactions and child development, leveraging a nationwide reform in the Netherlands. Using unique data on classroom observations and early childhood development in a difference-in-difference framework, we find that pedagogical leaders improved educational quality in the classrooms, particularly in terms of language modeling, but had no impact on emotional quality. Furthermore, the frequency of small group educational activities with disadvantaged children increased. Consistent with the evidence on preschool quality, the results indicate that language development of disadvantaged children improved. There is no evidence of gains in other development domains. Exploring potential channels, we document that staff exposed to the reform were more likely to experience being observed by and receiving feedback from a coach, while ruling out alternative explanations such as changes in teacher characteristics, staff-child ratio, classroom composition, or other professional development activities.

• "Preschool Hours and Child Development", with Thomas van Huizen and Ora Oudgenoeg - Paz. A new draft will be available soon

We examine the causal impact of an increase in preschool hours on child development by exploiting a reform in the Netherlands. The reform expanded preschool hours for disadvantaged children aged 2.5–4. Leveraging variation across municipalities in the timing and intensity of the reform's implementation, we estimate the effects of the entitlement to additional preschool hours on children’s language skills, executive functions, social-emotional development, and fine motor skills. The results show that the entitlement to more preschool hours substantially increases the actual use of preschool hours. Moreover, among children from disadvantaged backgrounds, additional preschool hours significantly improved language development, executive functioning, social-emotional behavior and fine motor skills. No significant effects were found for non-disadvantaged children. These findings suggest that extending preschool hours can meaningfully enhance development outcomes for children who need it most and thereby generate more equal educational opportunities.

• "Gender Wage Gap, Maternal Bargaining Power and Intergenerational Transmission of Attitudes". A new draft will be available soon

This paper explores the causal effect of mothers' relative wages on the intergenerational transmission of gender role attitudes by exploiting local market-level potential wages for parents when their child is aged 10-15. Using data from the British Household Panel Survey, while I find no effect of potential wages on the gender role attitudes of parents, I provide evidence that higher relative wages for mothers during their children's adolescence increase the similarity between the traditional gender role attitudes of mothers and their children in adulthood. Examining potential mechanisms, the results show that an increase in mothers' relative potential wages leads to greater parental involvement, particularly for mothers with more traditional gender role attitudes. The results support the household bargaining explanations.