Abstract: 
This paper investigates household preferences over who should work, what drives such preferences, and whether these preferences are malleable. We work in the Rohingya refugee camps of Bangladesh, where unemployment is ubiquitous. First, we document that men and women exhibit preferences for men’s work. Second, to understand what could drive these preferences, we randomly offer the same six-week job – under identical conditions – to the husband or the wife within a household. We document asymmetries across partners: when women work, their own psychosocial wellbeing improves, but their husbands’ does not; when men work, both their own and their wives’ wellbeing improve. We then assess the malleability of these preferences using a labor supply exercise one year later, that involves an unanticipated offer of an additional week of work. Women and men in households where women were previously employed are substantially more likely to prefer that the woman take the new job. They express significantly fewer concerns about women’s employment in general, suggesting that exposure can shift both women’s and men’s preferences by enabling individuals to update their beliefs about an otherwise uncommon experience. 

About the presenter: 
Erin Kelley is an Assistant Professor at the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago, and a consultant with DEC at the World Bank. Her research focuses on identifying strategies to increase individual and household productivity, as an essential pathway to improving income and overall well-being. She studies this across three key domains: agriculture, where most households in low-income countries earn their livelihoods; industry, as a driver of economic transformation; and humanitarian settings, where productivity gains can support vulnerable populations. 

Gregory Lane is an Assistant Professor at the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago. His current research focuses on innovations in finance and technology, climate adaptation, and labor markets in developing countries. His ongoing work includes projects in Bangladesh, Uganda, and India.