Self-stereotyping describes the behavior of applying stereotypes to oneself. Using a novel design in an online experiment, I analyse two types of self-stereotypical behavior: statistical and taste-based self-stereotyping. Statistical self-stereotyping is defined as self-stereotypical behavior driven by stereotyped beliefs about one's own abilities. Taste-based self-stereotyping refers to self-stereotyping due to intrinsic preferences for stereotype compliance. In the experiment, the stereotype participants associate with a given task is exogenously changed via differential task framing holding all other task characteristics fixed. Exploiting this exogenous shift in task stereotype, I find statistical self-stereotyping among women: Framing the same task as a male-typed task instead of a female-typed task has a significant and negative impact on women's beliefs about their future task performance, conditional on past performance. I find no strong evidence for taste-based self-stereotyping. The findings highlight the subtle yet powerful influence of task stereotypes on beliefs about own ability and underscore the importance of stereotype context in shaping individual confidence.
This paper analyzes the impact of the modernization of the Swiss marital law in 1988 on labor force participation, with a particular focus on married women in conservative regions of Switzerland. The reform comprised several measures to promote equality between spouses within marriage, including abolishing legal provisions that had previously required a husband’s explicit or implicit consent for his wife to work. We hypothesize that the reform had the strongest impact in conservative areas, where prevailing gender norms were more likely to conflict with the legal changes. To test this, we exploit heterogeneity in local attitudes toward the reform, as revealed by municipality-level voting outcomes in a national referendum regarding the law change. We interpret these differences in voting outcomes as a reflection of different local norms and apply a difference-in-differences identification strategy, both in cross-sectional and panel settings, to compare labor force participation (LFP) of married women marrying before and after the reform in municipalities that strongly opposed the reform (labeled as conservative) to those that strongly supported it (labeled as liberal). Cross-sectional evidence shows that newly married women in conservative municipalities significantly increased their labor force participation in the first year after marriage after the reform, relative to newly married women in liberal municipalities. This suggests that the law had an empowering effect in regions where traditional gender norms were more entrenched. Panel analyses using an event-study difference-in-difference specification further show that this effect persists, revealing that the relative increase in married women's labor force participation in conservative versus liberal municipalities lasts at least as long as three years into marriage. Overall, the reform hence helped reduce the gap in post-marriage employment between women in conservative and liberal regions.