Abhay Aneja and his colleagues reveal that girls civil servants who were more exposed to female colleagues during the First World War were much more likely to work. For each standard deviation increase in exposure to female coworkers, the gender gap in child labor force participation narrowed by more than 4 percentage points. This represents a 9% decline in the average labor force participation gap. Importantly, these effects were
- Driven by increased participation of girls in the labor market (sons are not affected)
- The strongest effects are observed in children who, at the time of exposure, were teenagers
- Present even for children who have left their parents’ hometown
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