Gendered work norms in Egypt: Evidence on preferences and social perceptions

We examine the nature and scope of gendered work norms in Egypt using new experimental evidence from a household survey. Societal norms around work, care responsibilities and the types of jobs women and men can hold can have a profound effect on gender differences in employment, earnings and life satisfaction. Indeed, while lack of childcare and secure transportation remain widely cited constraints to women’s employment in low-income settings, descriptive and experimental evidence also suggest that deeply rooted social norms about gender roles play a prominent role in driving the persistence of such barriers and in how households evaluate women’s work. Norms emphasizing men as primary breadwinners and women as primary caregivers shape both economic decisions and perceptions of behavior in ways that may limit women’s labor force participation even when opportunities exist. We implement three survey-based experiments among economically disadvantaged households to elucidate these norms and measure their salience. A wage‐comparison choice experiment shows that households strongly prefer that men—not women—take on additional paid work, even when this preference entails substantial forgone income for the household. When offered identical wages for equal hours of work, only 12.4 percent of respondents select the wife to take it as a first part-time job versus the husband taking it as a second part-time job. Even when her wage is double that of her husband, a clear majority still prefer that the husband works instead. These results indicate a large implicit cost that households place on women working outside the household. Two randomized vignette experiments further demonstrate that identical actions are interpreted differently depending on whether they are performed by men or women. Men who take on a second job to support their financially struggling household are widely viewed as more competent and more moral, whereas perceptions of women making the same choice are far more divided. Perceptions of workplace effort are broadly similar across genders, with small differences appearing only in perceptions of morality. Together, these findings emphasize the strength of gendered work norms in Egypt and reveal nuance in how they shape behavior. The findings also underscore the relevance of gender norms for designing programs affecting household work decisions and testing new approaches to promote women’s economic inclusion.