Gender norms, couples' labor supply decisions, and flexibility in working conditions in Colombia

This project involves understanding both, supply constraints to women's participation in the labor market – financial, family, social norms– and demand constraints –flexibility of work contracts. We aim at studying how gender norms – tasks sharing, gender roles - affect intra-household decisions about labor market participation and the likelihood for each spouse to accept flexible work arrangements. We will first elicit gender norms and study how the decisions will vary according to gender. We will vary experimentally both the presence of the other spouse and the information about what is the average choice of other couples to identify deviations from the norm. We will measure the willingness to work and the propensity to accept flexible work using a discrete choice experiment among heterosexual couples. This project will make an original contribution by drawing a direct link between the growing literature on the demand for flexibility and the one on intra-family decisions.