The strength of gender norms and gender-stereotypical occupational aspirations among adolescents

Abstract

We empirically test the hypothesis that adolescents' occupational aspirations are more gender-stereotypical if they live in a region where the societal norm towards gender equality is weaker. For our analysis, we combine rich survey data describing a sample of 1,434 Swiss adolescents who attended 8th grade in 2013 with municipal voting results dealing with gender equality and policy. We find that occupational aspirations predominantly follow gender stereotypes and that adolescents living in municipalities with a stronger norm towards gender equality are significantly less likely to aspire for a gender-stereotypical occupation, even after controlling for individual-level controls. At the same time, we also find that the association is surprisingly weak – in the sense that adolescents tend to aspire for gender-stereotypical occupations even in the most gender-progressive municipalities. Moreover, a more detailed analysis shows that the association mainly reflects the intergenerational transmission of occupations from parents to their children and/or regional differences in the prevailing occupational structure. We discuss the implications of these findings and several mechanisms that are consistent with the evidence from our analysis.