This paper contributes to the evidence on female labor force participation in Nepal by exploring the role of social norms in explaining women’s decision to work for pay outside the home in the non-subsistence economy, where their share remains low and where normative influences also tend to be more prominent barriers for women, as compared to the subsistence economy. Social norms are defined as informal rules about acceptable or appropriate behaviors in a given context (Muñoz Boudet et al., 2023). When social norms reinforce expectations that men and women will occupy distinct and unequal social roles, they reproduce gender inequality in access to resources and opportunities. While there has been research on how to improve women’s economic participation, the overall literature on binding and women-specific constraints in Nepal, especially in relation to the role of social norms vis-à-vis structural and other factors is limited.<sup>6</sup> This study adds to the literature aiming to empirically identify prevalent social norms related to FLFP. Existing studies (Gauri et al., 2019; Sen et al., 2022; Zeitoun et al., 2023) measure social norms by gauging not only respondents’ own beliefs, but also their expectations of how common it is for others in their social group to engage in related behaviors and the expected social approval or disapproval, including social consequences surrounding those behaviors. By rigorously measuring these components of social norms, this methodology allows identification of the strength of social norms and how closely associated they are with the outcomes of interest. This paper is one of the first applications of these measurements to the topic of FLFP in South Asia, presenting rigorous evidence on the extent to which social norms impact Nepali women’s economic participation. We add to the existing literature on the topic by highlighting nuances associated with social norms under various circumstances faced by married young women in Nepal.

Given the prevalence of outmigration in Nepal, the paper also explores the flexibility of norms among households with migrant spouses. Male migration not only changes intrahousehold power allocations and dynamics, as well as upholding of norms (Ahmed, 2020; Ram Mohan et al., 2023), but also local labor markets. However, the impacts of male out-migration on labor supply of non-migrating members of the household, such as wives, remain ambiguous. On the one hand, receiving remittances could increase members’ consumption of leisure and decrease their labor supply (an income effect). On the other hand, a large outflow of migration could lead to a reduction in aggregate labor supply, which would in turn increase aggregate wages in the local labor market, thereby increasing the opportunity cost of not participating in the labor market (substitution effect). Empirical evidence from Nepal shows support for both hypotheses. Shrestha (2017), using data on large-scale male migration between 2001 and 2011, finds that a rise of 1 percentage point (p.p.) in the share of migrants in the population at the village level increases wages by 2.3 percent and increases LFP by 0.4 p.p. in non-migrant households, driven largely by increased female participation and wages in nonagricultural employment. The LFP impact for households with a migrant is lower, at 0.2 p.p., suggesting some degree of an income effect. Similarly, Lokshin and Glinskaya (2009) and Raju et al. (2018) find that FLFP falls for households with a migrant due to an income effect from receiving remittances. Phadera (2016) finds that male migration either increases women's workload, potentially overburdening them, or forces them to realign their priorities and fill home production and family farm roles vacated by men. This is consistent with findings from Ghimire et al. (2021), who find that wives of migrant workers increase their participation in farming, but also daily activities outside the home, leisure activities, and media use, suggesting a mixed impact on their workload and autonomy.

> 6 This study does not focus on norms that may impact a range of outcomes that start earlier in life, with implications on economic participation at later stages of life. These can include differential investments in girls’ and boys’ education, child marriages, as well as other harmful practices related to sexual and reproductive health, such as the practice of menstrual isolation (or “chhaupadi”) (Holland et al., 2023).

3