Norms Behind Closed Doors: A Field Experiment on Gender Norm Misperceptions and Maternal Employment Decisions in Couples

We study whether pluralistic ignorance about societal and spousal support for maternal employment sustains gender gaps in labor outcomes. We first elicit secondorder beliefs from 1,732 cohabiting couples with young children in Bogotá. Personal support for working mothers is almost universal, yet both men and women substantially underestimate others’ support, particularly that of men. We then implement a randomized controlled trial delivering personalized information on prevailing attitudes toward maternal employment. The intervention narrowed belief gaps —raising women’s estimates of peer support and men’s perceptions of their partners’ views— while leaving first-order attitudes unchanged. Treated men were 7–8 percentage points (16 percent) more likely than men in the control group to nominate their wives for a career-building course rather than take the course for themselves; women, whose baseline demand was already high, showed no further change. Treated women intensified job-search efforts, and treated men expressed stronger preferences for work-family balance. These results reflect short-run adjustments in beliefs and reported behaviors, measured within weeks of the intervention.