Career Sacrifice in Couple Formation: Social Norms or Labor Market Realities?

Last registered on August 22, 2025
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Career Sacrifice in Couple Formation: Social Norms or Labor Market Realities?
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0016588
Initial registration date
August 19, 2025

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
August 22, 2025, 5:41 AM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

Country
United States of America
Region

Primary Investigator

Name
Ugo antonio Troiano
Affiliation
University of California Riverside
Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Status
Completed
Start date
2024-05-17
End date
2025-07-17
Keywords
Gender, Labor
Additional Keywords
gender, employment, online dating, stigma.
JEL code(s)
C93, J12, J16, J31.
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
About one fourth of U.S. couples consist of a sole earner, typically male. Both economic and sociological theories have suggested that social norms may play a role in sustaining such arrangements, stigmatizing stay-at-home males. First, I will present the potential economic importance of such a channel in a theoretical framework: social norms penalizing men in stay-at-home roles generate gender gaps in both employment and wages, even without any other gender difference. Second, I will test whether stigma matters using a novel online dating experiment, in which participants are assigned to profiles where signals of a willingness to sacrifice one’s career for family are randomly assigned.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Troiano, Ugo antonio. 2025. "Career Sacrifice in Couple Formation: Social Norms or Labor Market Realities?." AEA RCT Registry. August 22. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.16588-1.0
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Intervention (Hidden)
Intervention Start Date
2025-06-03
Intervention End Date
2025-07-17

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
The experiment measures five main outcome variables related to romantic interest and dating preferences, each assessed on a Likert-type scale. All five are coded to reflect the participant’s evaluation of a hypothetical dating profile presented during the survey:

Attractiveness – A self-reported rating of how physically and emotionally attractive the participant finds the profile.

Desirability – A broader assessment of how desirable the participant finds the profile as a potential romantic partner, incorporating factors beyond physical appearance.

Intention to Date – A binary or ordinal variable indicating whether the participant would be interested in going on a date with the person described in the profile.

The fourth item assesses self-perception in the hypothetical relationship:
“How would you feel about yourself if you were dating this person?”
This question links attraction to self-image, capturing whether dating the person would enhance or diminish the respondent’s own perceived social standing or self-esteem.

The fifth item measures anticipated peer evaluation:
“How do you think your friends would feel about you if you were dating this
person?”
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
Heterosexual participants between 18 and 55 years old were recruited through the Amazon MTurk platform. The number of participants was 500: 250 male and 250 female. Following the individual questionnaire, participants were presented with 42 profiles. Male participants were asked to evaluate female profiles, and vice versa. A profile, in modern online dating, is a one (or more) picture(s), followed by a short presentation of the user. The user is evaluated and the users are able communicate after a match. The experiment was designed to study gender differences in response to a main treatment: a randomly assigned sentence signaling the willingness to sacrifice
one’s career for the benefit of the family. Given the large number of profiles shown, it was impractical to randomize the main treatment by using only one signaling sentence. Therefore, six synonymous sentences were developed to convey the willingness to give up one’s career for the benefit of the family. The control group consisted of keeping the profile without the extra treatment sentence.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Randomization done by the survey company.
Randomization Unit
individual sentence of an online dating profile.
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
42 profiles (clusters) presented to each participant.
Sample size: planned number of observations
21000
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
50% of realizations gets control (no message), 1/3 of the realization gets the treatment (career sacrifice), 1/6 of the realizations gets a control check (ambition message)
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
University of California Riverside
IRB Approval Date
2024-05-17
IRB Approval Number
30287
Analysis Plan

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials