More Women in Tech? Evidence from a Field Experiment Addressing Social Identity

Lucía Del Carpio () and Maria Guadalupe ()
Additional contact information
Lucía Del Carpio: INSEAD

No 11876, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This paper investigates whether social identity considerations-through beliefs and normsdrive women's occupational choices. We implement two field experiments with potential applicants to a five-month software-coding program offered to women from low-income backgrounds in Peru and Mexico. When we correct the perception that women cannot succeed in technology by providing role models, information on returns and access to a female network, application rates double and the self-selection patterns change. Analysis of those patterns suggests that identity considerations act as barriers to entering the technology sector and that some high-cognitive skill women do not apply because of their high identity costs.

Keywords: social norms; occupational segregation; identity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D91 J16 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 51 pages
Date: 2018-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

Published - published in: Management Science, 2024, 68 (5), 3196–3218

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp11876.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: More Women in Tech? Evidence from a field experiment addressing social identity (2018)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11876

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().