Research

Persistent gender differences in earnings remain one of the most striking features of modern labor markets. I examine whether mixing boys and girls in school can reduce gender inequality later in life. This paper exploits the gradual end of sex segregation in French elementary schools between 1958 and 1975. Combining newly digitized historical data on schools with administrative earnings records, I estimate the effect of growing up in a coeducational environment on adult earnings. Exposure to coeducation significantly narrows the gender wage gap by about 19%. The effect operates mainly through occupational sorting, with women entering higher-paying and more male-dominated jobs. The results identify early exposure to the opposite gender in school as a key formative environment shaping long-run gender inequality.

We examine how the 2015 relaxation of China’s one-child policy affected marriage outcomes. Before the reform, some groups were already permitted to have two children. In China, where the sex ratio is heavily skewed toward men, being exempt from the one-child constraint may have been a desirable characteristic for marriage, increasing men's marriage odds. Using detailed policy data on exemptions and individual data from 2010-2018, we find that after the relaxation, men previously allowed a second child are less likely to marry compared to those not allowed. There is no effect for women. The results suggest that differential fertility constraints distorted who got married by advantaging certain men when there was a demand for a second child and strong marriage competition. Furthermore, suggestive evidence shows that the relaxation increased matching by education when exemptions were moderately widespread, indicating that fertility constraints also shaped who married whom.

Successful women can serve as role models only if their success becomes visible. This paper studies whether success events generate comparable media coverage for women and men, and whether successful women and men are portrayed in similar ways. We compare three domains of media-covered role models in France: ministerial appointments, cultural awards, and Olympic medals from 2002 to 2025. We collect newspaper coverage for those individuals and use large-language-model to classify the article content. Quantitatively, event-study estimates show that successful women receive as much media coverage as men in all three domains. In politics, women are less visible before appointment, but this gap closes after they become ministers. Qualitatively, we find more gender differences. In culture, baseline estimates show that women are more likely than men to have physical-related characteristics, and to a lesser extent family-related characteristics, mentioned before the event; winning an award does not change this pattern. In sports and politics, event-study estimates show that success increases references to family and physical characteristics, but these increases are generally similar for women and men. The main gender differences around the event are concentrated in politics with women more likely than men to have children, appearance, and clothing mentioned around appointment. These findings suggest that success events can generate comparable quantitative media returns for women and men, while leaving gendered differences in media framing.