Internal Economic Department Seminars – Jonathan Norris

Title: Beliefs on Children's Human Capital Formation and Mothers at Work

Abstract
We examine gendered beliefs about the effects of mothers working long hours relative to fathers on children's skill development. We develop a novel survey design linked to an experiment on a sample of parents in England. We combine the elicitation of initial beliefs using hypothetical scenarios and incentivized beliefs with an information treatment about the development of children's skills when mothers work long hours. Our findings show a strong belief that mothers who work longer hours relative to fathers are harmful to their child's future outcomes, and that these beliefs are substantially heterogeneous. We then provide an information treatment about children's school performance when mothers work full-time. We find that information provision leads on average to better and more accurate beliefs about children's behaviour when mothers work full-time. The response to information, however, appears to be driven by those who hold more positive views about women working longer hours based on the hypothetical initial beliefs. It appears that information in this context leads to belief updating among those with pre-existing more positive perceptions but who had nevertheless some uncertainty about performance.