Bound by Tradition: Cultural Gender Norms and Occupational Choice

Natalie Irmert ()
Additional contact information
Natalie Irmert: Department of Economics, Lund University, Postal: School of Economics and Management, Box 7080, S-220 07 Lund, Sweden

No 2026:5, Working Papers from Lund University, Department of Economics

Abstract: This paper investigates whether cultural gender norms about occupations, defined as a society’s perception of what is appropriate work for men and women, contribute to persistent gender-stereotypical occupational choice. Using large-scale international survey data and high-quality administrative records, I study whether second-generation immigrant men (women) are less likely to work in an occupation that is perceived as female (male)-typical work in their country of ancestry. I find robust evidence that men, but not women, adhere to occupation-specific cultural gender norms: men are less likely to work in an occupation that is perceived as female work in their country of ancestry, while there is no such effect for women. To investigate mechanisms behind this result, I design an international survey experiment. The results corroborate the gender asymmetry found in the observational data and reveal a social perception penalty for men in heavily female-dominated occupations, but no comparable consistent penalty for women in male-dominated fields. Taken together, the findings of this paper suggest that persistent social norms are a key factor behind the slow integration of men into female-dominated occupations.

Keywords: occupational choice; social norms; epidemiological approach (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J16 J24 J62 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 83 pages
Date: 2026-05-28
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://lucris.lub.lu.se/ws/portalfiles/portal/251349055/WP26_5 Full text (application/pdf)

Related works:
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:hhs:lunewp:2026_005

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Lund University, Department of Economics School of Economics and Management, Box 7080, S-22007 Lund, Sweden. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Iker Arregui Alegria ().