Undoing Gender with Institutions. Lessons from the German Division and Reunification

Quentin Lippmann, Alexandre Georgieff and Claudia Senik ()
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Quentin Lippmann: PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement
Claudia Senik: PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement

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Abstract: Social scientists have provided empirical evidence that "gender trumps money", meaning that gender norms can be more powerful than economic rationality in shaping daily arrangements between spouses. In particular, when they deviate from the "male breadwinner" norm, women react by "doing gender", i.e. overplaying their feminine role by increasing the number of housework hours that they accomplish. The risk of divorce also increases when a woman earns more than her husband. This paper shows that, however powerful, these norms are cultural and can be trumped by institutions. We use the 41-year division of Germany as a natural experiment and look at differences between East and West Lander in terms of gender behavior after the German reunification. As most countries of the socialist bloc, the former GDR had designed institutions that were much more gender equalizing than their counterpart in the former FRG. We show that these institutions have created a culture that keeps inuencing behavior up to the current period. In particular, East Germany differs from West Germany in the sense that a woman can earn more than her husband without "doing gender" and without putting her marriage at risk.

Keywords: Institutions; Culture; Gender norms; Household economics; German division; Family; Housework; Divorce; Labor market (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-evo, nep-gen, nep-his, nep-hme and nep-soc
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-01297653v3
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (21)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Undoing Gender with Institutions: Lessons from the German Division and Reunification (2020)
Working Paper: Undoing Gender with Institutions: Lessons from the German Division and Reunification (2020)
Working Paper: Undoing Gender with Institutions: Lessons from the German Division and Reunification (2020)
Working Paper: Undoing Gender with Institutions: Lessons from the German Division and Reunification (2019)
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