While economic research documents substantial negative effects of social media on youth outcomes, the role of parents in mediating these effects remains largely unexplored. We propose digital parenting as a new form of human capital investment and test whether interventions can shift parents' beliefs and practices, as well as children's outcomes. Drawing on a UK household longitudinal survey, Understanding Society, we first document that intensive social media use is associated with greater behavioural problems among children, and that parenting styles predict children's digital exposure. We then conduct our own longitudinal survey on 1,800 UK parents, and implement two randomized interventions: (i) an information treatment providing evidence on the risks of social media, and (ii) a four-week video training on digital parenting strategies. The information treatment increased support for school no-phone policies by 47% relative to the control group mean and actual participation in follow-up training by 37%, though it also raised parental anxiety by 20%. The video training generates suggestive evidence of improvements in parenting practices, particularly communication strategies. Effects on children's outcomes are modest but suggest reductions in screen time. Treatment effects vary substantially by parenting style: permissive parents respond most strongly to both interventions. These findings suggest that while providing information can effectively shift beliefs and, to some extent, practices, it involves welfare trade-offs.

This paper investigates the role of household socio-economic characteristics in shaping responses to policy interventions when traditional norms are strong, focusing on the impact of land inheritance amendments on women's empowerment in India. Leveraging changes to the Hindu Succession Act, which granted women the right to inherit ancestral property, and a simple conceptual framework with testable prediction, I show that the diverging results that can be found in the literature about the amendments can be explained by the heterogeneous responses to such policy changes. Using representative survey data, I find that the amendments positively affected education, especially among women from rural, landowning households with smaller plots of land. These women also experienced improved marriage market outcomes. The impact on female labor force participation varied across the socioeconomic spectrum, with more educated women showing increased participation in higher-paying jobs, while less educated women in rural areas either left the workforce or transitioned to less demanding occupations. This research contributes to understanding the complex dynamics of policy responses, highlighting the importance of considering the interplay between cultural practices, household characteristics, and socioeconomic factors in policy design and implementation, especially in contexts of high inequality. [Early WP]

This paper discusses evidence on the economic costs of sexual harassment. We first review the available data sources that allow researchers to measure these costs. Next, we identify studies highlighting the effect of sexual harassment on occupational segregation, job turnover, wage penalties, productivity losses for companies, and female labor participation. In assessing the existing policies, we review the evidence on anti-harassment training, targeted enforcement, and diversity programs and we find promising options for policymakers but note limitations from persisting sexist attitudes. Discussing a novel survey experiment, we illustrate the importance of beliefs in sustaining cultures of harassment, but being potential pathways for solutions. We conclude our review by suggesting that combining accountability measures with interventions to shift norms is crucial for much-needed cultural transformation across gender relations to definitively eliminate sexual harassment.

This paper provides causal evidence that childhood exposure to technology shapes preferences for gender-stereotypical educational fields. Leveraging large-scale free computer programs that provided universal access to personal computers for middle school students in France from 2001-2010, I employ a difference-in-differences approach to estimate the programs' impact on students' higher education choices. The findings reveal that the programs substantially increased women's likelihood of entering math-intensive tracks by 4 pp and engineering schools by 7 pp. Men also exhibited positive effects, but smaller, consequently reducing the gender gap in favour of women pursuing male-dominated STEM fields. Results point to several mechanisms through which early object exposure such as computers influenced choices: parental expectations, gender norms, skill development, and perceived career prospects. Supporting effects emerge for high school specialization choices, but long-term labour market impacts are harder to detect. Overall, this study highlights the role of gender-biased childhood socialization experiences in perpetuating economic gender inequalities and identifies a promising policy lever for mitigating such phenomena.

Honorary Mention at the Discrimination and Diversity UEA Workshop 

Recent research has attracted significant attention to workplace sexual harassment. While much is known about its impact on women's careers, there is limited research on prevention strategies, particularly the role of bystanders. Drawing on a large-scale survey of French workers, we assess beliefs around sexual harassment and evaluate the effects of correcting misconceptions through different interventions. Our results indicate little effects for women. For men, while providing accurate information about the prevalence of sexual harassment elicited some positive responses among men who underestimate the prevalence of sexual harassment, these were often limited to public, non-committal actions, underscoring a lack of meaningful engagement. For men working in male-dominated firms, the training triggered a backlash effect, highlighting the need for cultural and structural change.

This paper explores the impact of a new mechanism in reinforcing gender norms: the influence of cultural norms and gender attitudes on educational decisions, especially in STEM fields. To disentangle the effect of norms from institutions, we employ the epidemiological methodology: we use a cohort of second-generation immigrants in France and compare their higher education choices to the share of women in STEM in the country of origin of their parents. We draw upon the extensive TéO survey, which offers a representative sample enriched with essential immigration-related variables. Our findings show that men originating from countries with progressive gender norms in STEM exhibit a greater likelihood to pursue STEM, whereas the effect for women reverses. We discuss the implications of these findings in the context of the gender equality paradox theory.