# **Measuring Social Norms About Female Labor Force Participation in Jordan**

# **Varun Gauri, Tasmia Rahman, and Iman Sen**

It is widely understood that social norms constrain women’s labor force participation worldwide (Alesina, Giuliano, & Nunn, 2013; Bertrand, Kamenica, & Pan., 2015; Chamlou, Muzi, & Ahmed, 2016; Fernandez, 2013; World Bank, 2012). The role of women in childcare and domestic tasks, their visibility in public and mixed gender environments, segregation into particular jobs and industries, and women’s decision making power relative to men are all thought to bear on women’s labor force participation. What is not as well understood are the salience and importance of these various behaviors and beliefs, the relative influence of importance of behavior versus normative views, and the influence of husbands and fathers in comparison to the views and behavior of the society at large.

This study develops methods for measuring and validating social norms and beliefs regarding women’s access to and participation in labor markets. Using a large-scale quantitative survey conducted across three governorates of Jordan, the study measures the components of social norms in a sample of 1,000 households; conducts tests of the consistency, validity, stability, and reliability of the measures; and examines the influence of inter-personal expectations within the household on women’s beliefs and choices.

Jordan’s female labor force participation is the lowest in the world of a country not at war. Though Jordanian women are among the most educated in the MENA region (53% of university graduates are women), female labor force participation (FLFP) was 14 percent in 2008, compared to 64 percent among men (The World Bank, 2018). Our study finds that social norms play a key role in these labor market outcomes for women. But social norms are not so deeply internalized that there is little scope for interventions – most non-working women would like to work. More than 95% of Jordanians, men and women, support women’s participation in the labor force, though they underestimate the extent to which others are supportive. At the same time, support for FLFP declines when people are asked about specific scenarios. The most important influences on a married woman’s orientation toward work appear to arise from her beliefs about what her husband expects and believes, rather than from concerns regarding generalized social norms. Our study shows that a careful examination of social norms can orient the targets and messages of information campaigns to increase FLFP.

# **What Are Social Norms and How Do We Measure Them?**

Social norms, which refer to widely shared beliefs about how others in our social group behave and how they ought to behave, are a product of human sociality. They arise from social interdependence, and are the product of a rule for behavior and common knowledge of that rule. Social norms are informal governance mechanisms and exert a powerful influence of our decision-making and behavior. In consequence, norms have been called the “glue” or “cement” of society (Elster, 1989). This tendency to associate and behave as members of groups- what we call human sociality- can cause groups or societies to get stuck in and perpetuate negative or harmful collective patterns of behavior (World Bank, 2015).

Social norms related to gender are pervasive in every human society. They prescribe a wide range of practices, behaviors, and even thoughts and feelings that are considered appropriate for men and women to have and exhibit. These include inter-personal behaviors (e.g., when and how many children to have), social practices (e.g., dress, speech, dominance, child rearing), political actions (e.g., holding and exercising public office, voting), and economic decisions (e.g., participating in the labor force, opening a bank account, starting a business, employing others). Although these various behaviors usually draw on a common set of mental models of the world and human relationships (including the very idea that society is 2