Sultan Mehmood

Thematic seminars
Development and political economy seminar

Sultan Mehmood

New Economic School
Why are rights revolutions rare?
Joint with
Daniel L. Chen, Shaheen Naseer
Venue

MEGA

MEGA

Maison de l'économie et de la gestion d'Aix
424 chemin du viaduc
13080 Aix-en-Provence

Date(s)
Friday, November 25 2022| 12:00pm to 1:15pm
Contact(s)

Timothée Demont: timothee.demont[at]univ-amu.fr
Lorenzo Rotunno: lorenzo.rotunno[at]univ-amu.fr

Abstract

We show that when traditional attitudes are challenged, norm disruptors pay a price. We experimentally foster more progressive gender attitudes among female teachers in Pakistan and show that these attitudes transmit to their students. Progressive gender attitudes, however, elevate stress hormone concentrations in blood plasma by 0.3 standard deviations and lead to a 0.35 standard deviations increase in domestic violence. Leveraging random variation in the fraction of teachers treated within a school, we find, however, that when additional teachers hold progressive attitudes—a moral bandwagoning effect—the costs of holding progressive gender attitudes are attenuated. Overall, our results suggest that deviation from traditional gender attitudes comes at a cost, but this cost diminishes as societal attitudes converge. In particular, domestic violence, more so than stress, stymies gender rights revolutions.

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