Gender Stereotypes in the Family

Cheti Nicoletti, Almudena Sevilla () and Valentina Tonei ()
Additional contact information
Almudena Sevilla: London School of Economics
Valentina Tonei: University of Southampton

No 15773, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We study whether and why parents have gender-stereotyped beliefs when they assess their child's skills. Exploiting systematic differences in parental beliefs about a child's skills and blindly graded standardized test scores, we find that parents overestimate boys' skills more so than girls' in mathematics (a male-stereotyped subject), whereas there are no gender differences for reading. Consistent with an information friction hypothesis, we find that the parental gender bias disappears for parents who are interviewed after receiving information on their child's test scores. We further show that the parental gender bias in detriment of girls contributes to explain the widening of the gender gap in mathematical skills later in childhood, supporting the hypothesis that exposure to gender biases negatively influence girls' ability to achieve their full potential.

Keywords: parental beliefs; gender bias; stereotypes; school performance; standardized scores (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C23 C26 D13 J13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 40 pages
Date: 2022-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gen
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Gender stereotypes in the family (2022)
Working Paper: Gender stereotypes in the family (2022)
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