Job Market Paper

We Don't Talk About Boys: Masculinity Norms Among Adolescents in Brazil [pdf]

Media: Folha de São Paulo, EconomistAs podcast

Masculinity norms are the beliefs about what men should or not do, such as that men should suppress their emotions or use violence. I measure masculinity norms among 2,608 adolescents in Rio de Janeiro and document large misperceptions about these norms: most boys and girls overestimate the share of peers that hold traditional views of masculinity. I examine whether a lack of horizontal communication (i.e., communication with peers) or biased communication (i.e., communication with a selected group) perpetuates misperceived norms through two field experiments in 25 schools. In a first experiment, I randomly assigned adolescents to a mediated discussion to learn peers’ opinions about masculinity or a placebo discussion about recycling. Masculinity discussions reduce misperceptions about classmates’ beliefs by about 50% immediately, with effects persisting three weeks later. Discussions in which people self-select into speaking or are randomly asked to speak reduce misperceptions equally. This suggests that misperceptions are due to a lack of broad communication with peers. In a second experiment in a similar setting, adolescents choose the peers with whom they want to discuss masculinity. Encouraging communication with chosen peers also reduces misperceptions, suggesting that adolescents do not talk about masculinity even with closer peers. Evidence from this experiment shows that underestimating interest and comfort in these discussions might explain the lack of communication.

Working Papers

Masculinity Around the World, [pdf] [video summary] with Victoria Baranov, Ralph de Haas, and Pauline Grosjean 

Media: Vox CEPR Podcast

This paper explores the socioeconomic roles of masculinity norms. We collect the first cross-cultural evidence on men's adherence to dominance masculinity norms from nationally representative, face-to-face surveys across 43 countries in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. Our analysis unveils substantial variation in adherence to these norms, both across and within countries, and identifies three domains where they exert significant influence. In the economic domain, adherence to dominance masculinity correlates positively with behaviors supporting economic growth, such as labor supply at the intensive margin, but also generates frictions by constraining occupational choice to traditionally masculine sectors. In the health domain, adherence to dominance masculinity is linked to more risk-taking, higher rates of depression, and shorter lifespans among men. In politics, it predicts both individual demand for strongman populism and its political supply at the country level. Across all domains, dominance masculinity norms play a role distinct from, and sometimes opposite to, social norms about women and gender roles.

Expected Discrimination and Job Search, [pdf] with Deivis Angeli and Fernando Secco

Media: World Bank Development Impact, Nexo Políticas Públicas

The impacts of labor market discrimination depend not only on whether employers discriminate, but also on jobseekers’ responses to expected discrimination. To study these responses, we ran a set of field experiments in Rio de Janeiro’s favelas (urban slums). In an audit study, we find little difference between callback rates for favela and non-favela resumes. Yet, over 87% of favela jobseekers in our study (N=2,167) expect discrimination in callbacks. Our main strategy to randomize expected discrimination is to vary whether favela jobseekers may expect an employer to know their address. We find that (i) removing the need to declare address encourages applications only among white jobseekers, and (ii) jobseekers perform on average worse in real job interviews when expecting interviewers to know their name and address, as opposed to only their name, the only information actually known by the interviewer. The effects on interview performance also concentrate on white jobseekers, likely because they can more easily pass as non-favela residents and ignore racial discrimination. Hence, expected discrimination can shape job market outcomes through interview performance and applicant pool composition.

Ayahuasca Durably Improves Wellbeing, [draft available upon request] with Patrick Francois and Matt Lowe 

We partner with an ayahuasca center in Brazil to study the well-being effects of a one-evening ayahuasca treatment within a ritualized group setting. We report results from an experiment that enrolled over four hundred participants, none of whom had previous experience of ayahuasca. Relative to placebo, ayahuasca increases happiness and reduces psychological distress six months later by roughly 0.4 standard deviations. These effects are driven by participants that were distressed at baseline. Improvements in well-being are strongly positively correlated with participants' reports of the mystical nature of their trips. Participants that reported having had challenging trips still have improvements in well-being compared with placebo participants. We estimate the mental health benefits of participating in an ayahuasca ceremony to be roughly 200 times the cost of 24 USD.

Work in Progress

Masculinity Norms and Their Economic Consequences, with Victoria Baranov, Ralph de Haas, and Pauline Grosjean -- in preparation for the Annual Review of Economics

Women's Cognitive Load and Labor Market Outcomes in Brazil, with Jamie McCasland (Design stage -- in partnership with the Secretariat of Planning of Niterói, Rio de Janeiro) [Project Summary]

Wage Transparency Within and Across Firms: Experimental Evidence From Brazil, with Mayara Felix and Bobby Pakzad-Hurson (Design stage -- in partnership with the Brazilian Ministry of Planning) [Project Summary]

What do people value at work? with Mayara Felix (Design stage) [Project Summary]

Masculinity Norms and Social Learning: Theory and Evidence, with Marcos Ross

Pre-PhD Publications (in Portuguese)

Efeitos de Tamanho da Sala no Desempenho dos Alunos: Evidências Usando Regressões Descontínuas no Brasil (with Naercio Menezes Filho). Revista Brasileira de Economia 74 (2020): 352-401.

Determinantes da Distribuição da (Des) igualdade de Gênero entre os Estados Brasileiros (with Regina Madalozzo and Adriana Bruscato). Estudos Econômicos (São Paulo) 46 (2016): 161-188.

Reports

It's Not Gender as Usual: Guiding Questions for Transformative Intersectional Gender+ Research (with Hannah Sullivan Facknitz, Isha Mathur, Elaina Nguyen, and Claire Okatch)