Reverting to traditional views of gender during times of relative deprivation: An experimental study in Nepal

Katrina Kosec, Cecilia Hyunjung Mo, Soosun You and Margaret Boittin

No 2211, IFPRI discussion papers from International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)

Abstract: Do individuals’ perceptions of their relative economic status affect their attitudes regarding gender roles in patriarchal societies? What role does hearing messages designed to increase support for women’s empowerment play in moderating these effects? Leveraging an original survey experiment in Nepal, we find that a prime conferring feelings of relative deprivation causes women to revert to traditional views of gender in economic decision-making; they become less supportive of women having equal control over household income, sharing house hold chores with men, and working outside the home. Women’s empowerment messaging does not attenuate these effects. Priming men to feel relatively deprived causes declines in gender equitable economic and political views, but women’s empowerment messaging nullifies these effects. The results suggest that among populations feeling relatively deprived, regressive gender norms may take hold. However, light-touch efforts to spur support for women’s empowerment may counter some reversion to traditional views of gender.

Keywords: economic aspects; gender; women's empowerment; decision making; income; households; poverty; workforce; Nepal; Asia; Southern Asia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp and nep-gen
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://hdl.handle.net/10568/137669

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:fpr:ifprid:2211

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IFPRI discussion papers from International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().