Imagine your Life at 25: Gender Conformity and Later-Life Outcomes

Sreevidya Ayyar, Uta Bolt, Eric French and Cormac O'Dea

No 32789, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Using thousands of essays written by 11-year-olds in 1969, we construct an index measuring children’s conformity to gender norms. We link this index to outcomes over the life-cycle. Conditional on age-11 covariates, a one standard deviation increase in our index predicts a 4% decline in lifetime earnings for girls, associated with lower wages and fewer hours worked. We find no statistically significant association for boys. Education, occupation, and family formation account for 40% of the earnings decline observed among girls.

JEL-codes: J13 J16 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024-08
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Related works:
Working Paper: Imagine your life at 25: gender conformity and later-life outcomes (2025)
Working Paper: Imagine your Life at 25: Gender Conformity and Later-Life Outcomes (2024)
Working Paper: Imagine your life at 25: Gender conformity and later-life outcomes (2024)
Working Paper: Imagine your life at 25: Gender conformity and later-life outcomes (2024)
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