Experimental Design
We conduct a survey experiment where we build upon the Krupka-Weber (2013) approach to measure normative beliefs regarding the role of women in today’s labor market and the relevance of the male breadwinner model in Western societies. In our data collection, we focus on Germany as a country characterized by persistent gender gaps in the labor market, with social norms frequently cited as one of the contributing factors. By randomizing individual decisions on labor supply in the context of a family-work conflict, our goal is to determine the normative pressure on women to decide either in favor of a more traditional family concept or for their labor market careers. In our 2x2 design, we are able to additionally test the role of beauty in the establishment of gender-related social norms by randomly varying the attractiveness of fictitious persons displayed in modified AI-based images.
Using several hypothetical scenarios on labor market decisions that mimic realistic trade-offs between the family domain and the labor market career faced by women today, we measure the social acceptance of individual behavior. Our first main outcome is an incentivized measure of social acceptability, for which survey participants have to report what they think the whole population believes. We complement this Krupka-Weber measure by another outcome for which we ask the participants about their personal beliefs. This informs us about possible misperceptions between what people think others believe and what they actually believe.
We make use of six fictitious scenarios which describe real-world trade-offs that Western women may face today across their life cycle. The scenarios differ in various dimensions of career goals (e.g. getting promoted) and family goals (e.g. having children):
1) Childcare
A mother of a young child either returns to the labor market after parental leave or not, thereby focusing on childcare.
2) Fertility
A childless woman in the mid 30’s either decides to have a child now or continues to focus on her labor market career.
3) Housewife
A newly married woman either continues to work in a full-time job or decides to devote herself fully to the role of housewife.
4) College
A young woman either follows her parents’ wishes and joins the small family business of her parents or starts a labor market career by going to college.
5) Eldercare
A married woman either reduces working time to take care of her mother-in-law or not, which is possible if a paid caregiver is hired.
6) Promotion
A businesswoman either accepts a promotion to a management position or remains at the same hierarchical level as her husband in order to have more time for the family.
Our first research question is about social norms regarding women complying with the traditional breadwinner role model which would imply participants to agree on the social acceptability of women deciding in favor of family outcomes over career outcomes. Here, we expect to find evidence in line with traditional role models for at least the child bearing scenario, assuming that society overall expects women to give birth to children and not to stay childless. In light of recent trends towards gender equality in the labor market, we also expect evidence supportive of modern social norms, such as a positive assessment of women who choose not to be housewives.
Our second research question is about the potential disparity between newly established social norms regarding women in today’s society and people’s awareness of that, implying a misperception of the change in societal expectations. Here, we expect to find stronger empirical support of traditional role models when eliciting people’s views on what society in general thinks, compared to when asking them about their own personal beliefs.
Our third research question is about the role of physical attractiveness in the establishment of social norms regarding women in the labor market. Here, we expect to find evidence of interactions in the evaluation of women’s decisions for career vs. family depending on how beautiful they are. Several mechanisms could play a role in how attractiveness modifies the pressure on women to fulfill societal expectations regarding career and family.
On the one hand, we would expect attractive women to be even more pressured to comply with traditional family norms, under the assumption that those still exist. Based on Becker’s (1973) theory of the family, which posits that the surplus from marriage is maximized by one partner (traditionally the male breadwinner) specializing in market production, and the other specializing in home production, it is plausible that better-looking women can trade their looks for a husband’s better ability to provide. This exchange of beauty for income should lead to efficient relationships, where the beautiful woman focuses on home production and the high-ability man on market production. As a result, beauty can be a valuable input factor in a traditional partnership, where the man supplies the family monetarily and obtains non-monetary benefits from an attractive woman in return.
On the other hand, there are reasons to expect beauty to play a different role in Western societies today, such as the well-documented phenomenon of assortative mating. If traditional societal expectations have already disappeared and society instead favors female labor market aspirations, it is plausible to even expect the opposite interaction effect. As research in economics has documented that beauty pays in the labor market (Hamermesh 2011), society may expect from particularly attractive women to obtain their possible beauty premium in form of higher income. Independent of this economic consideration, society may also expect from attractive women to serve as inspiring trailblazers in the establishment and expansion of modern norms.
Finally, we inspect the results from our analysis of the survey data carefully by using the available information (timestamps, attention check, order of scenarios), which may help us to detect possible survey measurement phenomena like fatigue or learning effects. We also pay attention to heterogeneity along individual characteristics, which could modify the role of physical attractiveness in the establishment of societal expectations towards the role of women in society. In this context, we consider people’s age, attractiveness, children and gender. Regarding the latter, previous research documents gender differences in the way that people respond to opposite-sex individuals perceived as attractive, suggesting additional interaction effects. For instance, male participants may be more likely to approve in particular the most attractive women to focus on family outcomes (e.g. having children), while female participants may view the same attractive women as pioneers in breaking traditional norms (a possible ‘Taylor Swift Effect’), which relates to the well-documented phenomenon of role models in television and movies.