Natalie Irmert

Over the last decades, many western economies have experienced a decline in the employment share of traditionally male-dominated occupations, such as manufacturing, whereas traditionally female-dominated occupations show the highest growth rates. Yet, men seem reluctant to enter such occupations. This paper investigates whether cultural gender norms about occupations, defined as a society's perception of what is appropriate work for men and women, contribute to persistent gender-stereotypical occupational choice. Using large-scale international survey data and high-quality administrative records, I study whether second-generation immigrant men (women) are less likely to work in an occupation that is perceived as female (male)-typical work in their country of ancestry. I find robust evidence that men, but not women, adhere to occupation-specific cultural gender norms: men are less likely to work in an occupation that is perceived as female work in their country of origin, while there is no such effect for women. To investigate mechanisms of this result, I then design an international survey experiment. The results corroborate the gender asymmetry found in the observational data and reveal a social perception penalty for men in heavily female-dominated occupations, but no comparable penalty for women in male-dominated fields. Taken together, the findings of this paper suggest that persistent social norms constitute an important barrier to men's entry into female-dominated occupations.