The leaky pipeline: when career expectations meet social norms

Despite rising educational attainment among young women, traditional gender norms continue to constrain female labor force participation in many developing countries. This study examines whether a school-based career exploration program (CEP) can shift adolescents’ gendered labor market expectations in urban India. Using a school-level cluster-randomized controlled trial, we examine the causal impact of the CEP on final-year secondary school students’ expectations regarding women’s labor force participation and attitudes towards the male breadwinner norm. While young women almost universally see themselves working in the future, their expectations for a similarly situated young woman to be working a year before marriage, a year after marriage, and three years after childbearing are substantially lower and sharply declining at each step. Further, over one-third of students perceive that a woman having higher earnings or higher education than her husband can lead to marital conflicts. The CEP significantly increases students’ expectations that women will work after childbearing and reduces concerns about marital problems, potentially challenging traditional gender roles.